Tina Modotti Photographs

Apprentice to and lover of photographer Edward Weston in Mexico during the 1920s, Italian-born activist Modotti developed at that time a not widely known but consequential body of camera work of her own: portrait, still-life, architectural and documentary photos, the latter applied in large part to further the cause of world communism. Here, in a monumental feat of biographical research and picture assemblage for a current exhibition, art historian Lowe apparently tells all that can be known about this revolutionary artist--her friendships with populist painters Orozco, Rivera, Siqueiros et al.; her succession of lovers, one of whom was assassinated; her own imprisonment and deportation; her work for the Soviet International Red Aid in Berlin, Moscow and combat zones of the Spanish Civil War. As seen here, taken as a whole, Modotti's oeuvre seems to mock in equal measure Weston's dictum of art for art's sake and the conventional view that propaganda cannot be art. Her pictures of campesinos at work and on parade are as arresting as her twin lilies seen plain. (Oct.)