MODOTTI, TINA

Orozco mural from the entrance to the Great Patio at the National Preparatory School, Mexico City. Silver print, 10x8 inches (25.4x20.3 cm.), with notations, in ink, on verso. 1928 This photograph was made with a bulky 8x10-inch view camera Modotti inherited from her paramour and mentor, Edward Weston. Modotti expert Margaret Hooks writes of the image: "The composition of this print enables the viewer to see the murals as they would have been glimpsed by a spectator happening upon them. The monumental entranceway serves as an aperture that both frames and highlights the works on display." Modotti's photographs of Jose Clemente Orozco's murals reflect the extent to which her work in Mexico became integrated with, and integral to, that of major Mexican muralists of the post-Revolutionary period. According to Hooks, "The Italian-born photographer had a deep and abiding admiration for the work of Orozco and eventually came to esteem it more than Rivera's. In a letter to Edward Weston she wrote, "As time goes by I find myself liking Orozco's work more and more, I feel the genius. His things overflow with an inner potentiality which one never feels in Diego's." This image is reproduced in tina modotti, a fragile life (New York, 1975), unpaginated, where the mural is incorrectly attributed to Diego Rivera.