Weston, Edward
American (1886-1958)

DESCRIPTIVE TITLE: Tina Modotti reciting poetry

1924
platinum print
22.9 x 17.8 cm.
Museum Collection
GEH NEG: 8000
74:0061:0011

BIBLIOGRAPHIC REFERENCE: Mulligan, Therese & Wooters, David. --Photography from 1839 to today: George Eastman House, Rochester, NY.-- Cologne: Taschen, 1999. p. 489.//

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

INSCRIPTION: mount verso-(in pencil) "not for sale"

NOTES: Catalogued 2/93, DZ. See --Edward Weston: Photographs [CCP]--, fig. 141-145 for variants. "On October 4, 1924, Weston took a series of photographs of Modotti reciting poetry, including this work. In his journal, he described the circumstance of the sitting, as well as its psychological consequence: 'Tina sat to me yesterday morning. We had long planned that I should do her as I have often seen her, quoting poetry - to attempt the registration of her remarkably mobile face in action. There was nothing forced in this attempt, she was soon in a mood which discounted me and my camera - or did she subconsciously feel my presence and respond to it? Within twenty minutes I had made three dozen Graflex negatives and caught her sensitive face with its every subtle change.'" [Therese Mulligan, 1/97]

SUBJECT: personage, photographer / Modotti, Tina