Having first learned photography in her uncle’s portrait studio in Italy, Ms. Modotti was an artist in her own right with distinct aesthetic periods. She was a major contributor to the Mexican Renaissance, applying the precision of formalism to political and social thought.
A biography by Margaret Hooks, first published in 1993 and recently reissued — “Tina Modotti: Photographer and Revolutionary” — sorts out these myths. Bringing Ms. Modotti out from Mr. Weston’s shadow, Ms. Hooks detailed her life as an artist, activist and woman at the height of Mexican muralism, where Bohemia met political revolution through a whirlwind of artistic expression.
24 August 2017
