Manuel Álvarez Bravo

Photographer

• Born: February 4, 1902
• Birthplace: Mexico City, Mexico
• Died: October 19, 2002
• Place of death: Mexico City, Mexico

Education: Academy of San Carlos

Significance: Manuel Álvarez Bravo was an important Mexican photographer associated with the Surrealist movement of the twentieth century. He was best known for his photographs and portraits that depicted life in Mexico's postrevolutionary cultural rebirth. In addition to capturing images of everyday life and people, Bravo photographed several influential artists, writers, and filmmakers of the time, including Frida Kahlo, André Breton, Sergei Eisenstein, and Diego Rivera.

Background

Manuel Álvarez Bravo was born on February 4, 1902, in Mexico City, Mexico. He was born into an artistic family. His father was a high school teacher who pursued photography in his spare time, and his grandfather was a painter. Bravo's father died when he was young, and he was forced to quit school to help support the family. He worked in a textile factory and at other odd jobs for several years before finding a government position at the National General Treasury.

Bravo learned the basics of photography from a family friend, but he mostly taught himself and acquired many techniques. He also was interested in graphic design. He studied painting for a short time at the Academy of San Carlos in Mexico City and bought his first camera in 1924. One of his first photos, The Barber (1924), shows a man crouching over a seated child. The title is the only indication of what is happening in the image. He purposely kept the activity in the photo vague; he used this method in much of his work.

Bravo met German photographer Hugo Brehme while the latter was working on an assignment in Mexico. Through Brehme, the budding photographer learned European artistic styles. Brehme introduced Bravo to German photographer Wilhelm Kahlo, who also was working in Mexico. Kahlo's daughter, Frida Kahlo, who later became a famous painter, developed a close friendship with Bravo.

By the late 1920s, Bravo had established a name for himself in Mexican art circles. He met Italian photographer and model Tina Modotti and American photographer Edward Weston, both of whom further influenced and encouraged his work. They helped Bravo publish photos in the magazine Mexican Folkways, for which Modotti worked at the time. When Modotti was expelled from the country for her Communist beliefs, Bravo took over her duties at the magazine and began photographing works of famous artists and muralists, such as Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, and José Clemente Orozco.

Life's Work

In 1932, Bravo held his first solo exhibition in Mexico City. He became known for his black-and-white nudes, landscapes, street scenes, and folk art. He also worked on portraits of various people, including famous artists (such as Frida Kahlo), workers, and native people. Much of his work depicted death or morbid and supernatural themes. He traced this to his experiences with death from a young age and to the macabre culture, which was popular in Mexico.

His photo Striking Worker, Murdered (1934), which shows a demonstrator who was shot to death, focuses on the subject's eye to display the contrast of life and death. The Crouched Ones (1934) shows the backside of a group of workers leaning at a bar. The way that Bravo shot it, the subjects appear to have been decapitated and the chains holding the chairs to the bar look as if they are around the workers' ankles.

Bravo preferred to take only a few frames instead of multiple images of the same subject. In the 1940s, he concentrated on landscapes and shot a series of photos of the Mexican terrain. He used a wide-angle technique that was similar to the style used in film. This project led to work in the film industry. Beginning in 1943, he worked on still shots for films. He collaborated with several people, such as writer José Revueltas on the film Coatlicue (1949) and director Luis Buñuel on Nazarín (1959). Bravo continued work on films until 1959.

In the late 1960s, Bravo taught classes at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, where photographer Graciela Iturbide was one of his students. She initially wanted to become a filmmaker but said that Bravo's class and artistic style changed her mind. She liked how he did not rush and took the time to get the shot he wanted.

Bravo continued to work on photography in the decades that followed. His images during this time concentrated on open spaces and empty streets. He used fewer people as subjects, but he did use their presence. For example, he showed activities rather than the people doing them. He sometimes photographed images of a subject's hands or feet. As he aged, Bravo traveled less, so his friends brought him objects to photograph. He concentrated on nudes in his later life, though he said that he preferred to be out photographing nature. Bravo died at the age of one hundred on October 19, 2002, in Mexico City, Mexico.

Impact

Bravo was considered a cultural icon in his native Mexico and was one of the leaders in the artistic rebirth of the country after the revolution. His work has been shown at numerous museums throughout the world, including the Art Institute of Chicago; the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York; and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. The Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, California, held a retrospective of his work in 1971, and the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles held one in 2001. Bravo won several awards and art prizes throughout his life.

Personal Life

Bravo was married three times. In 1925, he married Lola Martinez de Anda, who later became a famous photographer under her married name, Lola Álvarez Bravo. The Bravos had one son, Manuel, in 1927. They divorced in 1948. Bravo next married Doris Heyden. His third wife, Colette Urbajtel, was also a photographer. Bravo had four other children: Laurencia, Miguel, Aurelia, and Genoveva.

Principal Works

The Barber, 1924

Striking Worker, Murdered, 1934

The Crouched Ones, 1934

Sea Dog, 1950

Quarter to Twelve, 1957

Bicycles on Sunday, 1966

Music Lesson, 1978

Show Store, 1983

Goats in the Shade, 1986

Fireworks for the Child Jesus, 1990

Bibliography

"About the Photographer: Alvarez Bravo, Manuel." Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College Chicago, www.mocp.org/detail.php?type=related&kv=6915&t=people. Accessed 17 Oct. 2017.

Congdon, Kristin G., and Kara Kelley Hallmark. Artists from Latin American Cultures: A Biographical Dictionary. Greenwood Press, 2002, pp. 1–5.

Golden, Tim. "In the Studio With: Manuel Alvarez Bravo; Mexican Myth, Master of Images." New York Times, 16 Dec. 1993, www.nytimes.com/1993/12/16/garden/in-the-studio-with-manuel-alvarez-bravo-mexican-myth-master-of-images.html?pagewanted=all. Accessed 17 Oct. 2017.

Ho, Alexander. "Revisiting the Mastery of Mexican Photographer Manuel Álvarez Bravo." Time, 17 Oct. 2012, time.com/3792450/revisiting-the-mastery-of-mexican-photographer-manuel-alvarez-bravo. Accessed 17 Oct. 2017.

Kandell, Jonathan. "Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Photographer, Dies at 100." New York Times, 21 Oct. 2002, www.nytimes.com/2002/10/21/arts/manuel-alvarez-bravo-photographer-dies-at-100.html. Accessed 17 Oct. 2017.

"Manuel Álvarez Bravo." Asociación Manuel Álvarez Bravo AC, www.manuelalvarezbravo.org/english/mab-en.php#nogo. Accessed 17 Oct. 2017.

"Manuel Alvarez Bravo (Mexican, 1902–2002)." Artnet, www.artnet.com/artists/manuel-alvarez-bravo. Accessed 17 Oct. 2017.