Photographers Codexery

Tina Modotti

Italian-American photographer, model, actor, and revolutionary activist.

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Tina Modotti

User:Franco Del Zotto · CC BY-SA 4.0

Modotti died from heart failure in a Mexico City taxi in 1942.[1][2] Assunta Adelaide Luigia Modotti Mondini, known as Tina Modotti, was born in Udine, Italy, with her birth recorded as either August 16 or August 17, 1896.[3][4] Modotti held Italian and American citizenship and worked as a photographer, model, actor, and a revolutionary political activist for the Comintern.[3]

Life and work

Modotti moved to Mexico with Weston in 1923, where they opened a portrait studio.[5][6] Modotti joined the Mexican Communist Party in 1927 and her photography became increasingly politically motivated.[7][8] Modotti was exiled from Mexico in 1930 and spent years in Berlin and Moscow working for the Comintern.[9][10] During the Spanish Civil War she worked under a pseudonym with Dr. Norman Bethune.[10]

After the Republican defeat in 1939, she returned to Mexico under a false name.[10][4] In 1913, Modotti left Italy and moved to San Francisco, where her father and sister were already living.[3][11] While in Los Angeles, Modotti encountered photographer Edward Weston, began a romantic relationship with him, and learned photography under his guidance.[12][2] The Mexican mural movement frequently used Modotti as its photographer; she captured the murals of Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco.[6]

What the cited sources add

The Richard Norton Gallery account states Modotti was hired in the sewing room at I. Magnin department store and later employed to model fashions.[2] The same source notes she attended San Francisco's Pan-Pacific Exposition in 1915, where she first saw Modern art and photography.[2] Patricia Albers and Sam Stourdzé's account says Modotti and Weston introduced "Straight Photography" to Mexico during the 1920s.[8] The Jacobin Magazine article reports Modotti's text "On Photography" insisted she sought not to be an "artist" but to capture social realities.[13]

The DW.com article states Modotti's photographs of roses, interiors, and a baby at the breast had considerable influence on photography.[4] The Richard Norton Gallery account says Modotti opened her first solo show in 1929 called the "First Revolutionary Photography Exhibit".[2]

References

  1. Wikipedia, "Tina Modotti" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Tina Modotti: A Fragile Life by Mildred Constantine; Linden, "Overlooked No More: Tina Modotti, Whose Life Was as Striking as Her Photographs", The New York Times; Saunders, "Tina Modotti: An amazing life in photography", The Telegraph, 4 July 2013 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  2. "Tina Modotti", Richard Norton Gallery, Retrieved September 1, 2015.. facts only, no text reused. richardnortongallery.com
  3. Wikipedia, "Tina Modotti" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Tina Modotti", monoskop.org; Argentieri, "Tina Modotti: Between Art and Revolution", Yale University Press, 2003, p. 29; "Tina Modotti", Museum of Modern Art; "Tina Modotti Italian photographer", www.britannica.com (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  4. "How the work of radical photographer Tina Modotti stood the test of time", dw.com, 2022-05-01. facts only, no text reused. dw.com
  5. Wikipedia, "Tina Modotti" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Edward Weston: Enduring Vision", The Getty, Retrieved September 1, 2015.; "Tina Modotti", Richard Norton Gallery (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  6. Wikipedia, "Tina Modotti" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Albers, Patricia and Stourdze, Sam. "Tina Modotti and the Mexican Renaissance", Moderna Museet, Retrieved September 1, 2015.; Modotti, "A Newly Discovered Article by Tina Modotti, Published for the First Time in English", Jacobin Magazine, January 2022; "Tina Modotti", Richard Norton Gallery, Retrieved September 1, 2015.; "After Diego Rivera", The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Retrieved September 1, 2015. (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  7. Wikipedia, "Tina Modotti" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Lowe, "Tina Modotti's Vision: Photographic Modernism in Mexico 1923–1930", 1996, p. 143; "Women Artists of Modern Mexico: Mujeres artistas en el México de la modernidad/Frida's Contemporaries: Las contemporáneas de Frida", Frida National Museum of Mexican Art/museo Mural Diego Rivera, 2008; Anton Holzer, ""Der Kuckuck", Sprachrohr des "Roten Wien"", Wiener Zeitung, 16 March 2019 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  8. Albers, Patricia and Stourdze, Sam. "Tina Modotti and the Mexican Renaissance", Moderna Museet, Retrieved September 1, 2015.. facts only, no text reused. modernamuseet.se
  9. Wikipedia, "Tina Modotti" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Dyer, "Once upon a time in Mexico", The Guardian, 29 Apr 2004; Dyer, "Once upon a time in Mexico", The Guardian, 29 Apr 2004 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  10. Wikipedia, "Tina Modotti" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Dyer, "Once upon a time in Mexico", The Guardian, 29 Apr 2004 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  11. Wikipedia, "Tina Modotti" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Tina Modotti", The Getty; Saunders, "Tina Modotti: An amazing life in photography", The Telegraph, 4 July 2013; Albers, "Tina Modotti Italian photographer", Britannica; "Tina Modotti", The Getty; Argenteri, Letizia. Tina Modotti: Between Art and Revolution, pp. 12-13. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2003. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  12. Wikipedia, "Tina Modotti" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Saunders, "Tina Modotti: An amazing life in photography", The Telegraph, 4 July 2013 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  13. Modotti, "A Newly Discovered Article by Tina Modotti, Published for the First Time in English", Jacobin Magazine, January 2022. facts only, no text reused. jacobinmag.com

Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Tina Modotti (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.

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Sources

Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.

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