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Modotti, Tina (attributed)
American (b. Italy, 1896-1942)

TITLE ON OBJECT: Tepotzotlan, Semana Santo
DESCRIPTIVE TITLE: Edward Weston in window

1924
gelatin silver print
8.5 x 6.6 cm.
Museum Collection
GEH NEG: 43266
74:0061:0095

Lowe, Sarah M. --Tina Modotti: Photographs.-- New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc./Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1995. fig. 12.//

EXHIBITION HISTORY: "Modotti and Weston: Mexicanidad", US, NY, Rochester February 15 - May 4, 1997.//

INSCRIPTION: verso-(in ink) "Tepotzotlan Semana Santo 1924" (stamped) "Edward Weston Collection" (in pencil) "by Chan (lined out in red pencil)"

NOTES: Catalogued 2/93, DZ. Amy Conger, noted Weston scholar, attributed this image to the painter Rafael Sala based upon an interview with Sala's widow. "The life and photography of Modotti has been the subject of rigorous scholarly research during the past decade. This research has led to the reattribution of this work to Modotti as its rightful author, replacing the painter Rafael Sala, a friend of both Modotti and Weston. Together with Sala and his wife, and a mutual friend, Modotti and Weston traveled to Tepotzotlán, a town to the north of Mexico City, during Holy week and Easter of 1924. The found lodging in a convent adjacent to a church located in the town square. It was there that Modotti made this portrait of Weston, who, absorbed in writing, leans against the window's ledge. In this photograph, Modotti established many of the formal qualities she will more fully develop in her later work. These include a meticulous eye towards organizing form within the frame of the photograph and the elimination of extraneous descriptive information for a more isolated and concentrated view of her subject. Here the image's rectilinear frame is echoed twice in the form of the window,...a pictorial device to frame Weston." [TM, 1/97]

SUBJECTS:
personage, photographer / Weston, Edward
architecture, window

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