Bravo became interested in photography at the age of twenty. His prolific career began in the thriving artistic climate of post-revolutionary Mexico alongside artists Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, and David Alfaro Siqueiros. Bravo's interest in Surrealist aesthetics and imagery is reflected in his photographs, which capture vignettes from everyday life replete with symbolic and metaphoric messages. Fellow photographer Paul Strand described Bravo's work as "rooted firmly in his love and compassionate understanding of his own country, its people, their problems and their needs...He is a man who has mastered a medium which he respects meticulously and uses to speak with warmth about Mexico."
Details
- Artist Name: Manuel Álvarez (Mexican, 1902-2002)
- Title: Absent Portrait (Retrato ausente)
- Date: 1945
- Medium: Gelatin silver print
- Dimensions: Image: 9-1/2 x 6-3/4 in. (24.1 x 17.1 cm)
- Credit Line: Norton Simon Museum, Museum Purchase through the Florence V. Burden Foundation
- Accession Number: PH.1971.071
- Copyright: © Courtesy Asociación Manuel Álvarez Bravo, A.C. & ROSEGALLERY
Object Information
Manuel Alvarez Bravo
- Pasadena Art Museum, 1971-05-04 to 1971-06-20
- Museum of Modern Art (New York, NY), 1971-07-07 to 1971-08-25
- George Eastman House, 1971-09-06 to 1971-10-15
- Humboldt State College, 1972-05-01 to 1972-06-15
- Santa Barbara Museum of Art, 1972-08-04 to 1972-09-29
- Phoenix, Phoenix Art Museum, 1972-11-03 to 1972-12-17
- Friends of Photography, 1973-01-02 to 1973-01-28
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1973-02-27 to 1973-03-12
- Milwaukee Art Center, 1973-03-23 to 1973-04-22
- San Francisco Museum of Art, 1973-06-04 to 1973-07-22
Manuel Alvarez Bravo: Mexico's Master Photographer
- Norton Simon Museum, 1990-09-06 to 1991-03-17
Silent Cities: Atget and the Modern Urban Landscape
- Norton Simon Museum, 1991-03-21 to 1991-09-29
Gaze: Portraiture After Ingres
- Norton Simon Museum, 2009-10-30 to 2010-04-05
- Parker, Fred R., Manuel Alvarez Bravo, 1971, no. 11 p. 47
- Gloria Williams, The Collectible Moment: Catalogue of Photographs in the Norton Simon Museum, 2006, cat. 47 p. 127
Additional Artwork by Artist
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