Tina Modotti (1896 – 1942) was born Assunta Adelaide Luigia Modotti Mondini in Udine, Italy. She was a photographer, model, silent film actress, and leftist who once playfully described her profession as "men." She acted in several silent movies in the early 1920s and later became a model for prominent photographers and artists of the time. By 1926, Modotti was an accomplished photographer in her own right, often publishing her work in left wing and Communist papers. Modotti emigrated to the United States in 1913 and settled in San Francisco. In 1918, she married Roubaix "Robo" de l'Abrie Richey and moved with him to Los Angeles in order to pursue a career in the movies. There she met the photographer Edward Weston and his assistant Margrethe Mather. By 1921, Modotti was Weston's favorite model and, by October of that year, his lover. Modotti's husband Robo seems to have responded to this by moving to Mexico in 1921. Following him to Mexico City, Modotti arrived two days after his death from smallpox on February 9, 1922. In 1923, Modotti returned to Mexico City with Weston and one of his four sons, leaving behind Weston's wife and remaining children. Modotti and Weston quickly gravitated toward the capital's bohemian scene, and used their connections to create an expanding portrait business. It was also during this time that Modotti met several political radicals and Communists, including three Mexican Communist Party officials who would all eventually become romantically linked with Modotti: Xavier Guerrero, Julio Antonio Mella, and Vittorio Vidali. By 1927, a much more politically active Modotti (she joined the Mexican Communist Party that year) found her focus shifting and more of her work becoming politically motivated. Around that period, her photographs began appearing in publications such as "Mexican Folkways", "Forma" and the more radically motivated "El Machete". Modotti is thought to have been introduced to photography as a young girl in Italy, where her uncle, Pietro Modotti, maintained a photography studio. Years later in the U.S., her father opened a similar studio in San Francisco, where her interest undoubtably developed further. However, it was her relationship with Edward Weston that was to allow her to gravitate upward to become a world class photographer. Mexican photographer Manuel Alvarez Bravo divided Modottis career as a photographer into two distinct categories: "Romantic" and "Revolutionary." The former period includes her time spent as Westons darkroom assistant, office manager and, finally, creative partner. Together they opened a portrait studio in Mexico City and were commissioned to travel around Mexico taking photographs for Anita Bremmers book, "Idols Behind Altars." During this time she also became the photographer of choice for the blossoming Mexican mural movement, documenting the works of Jos Clemente Orozco and Diego Rivera. Many of her pictures of flowers originate from that time. By December 1929, an exhibition of Tina Modottis work was billed as "The First Revolutionary Photographic Exhibition In Mexico." She had reached the zenith of her career as a photographer. Within a year she was to put her camera aside when she was deported from Mexico and, with only a few exceptions, was not to pick it up again in the dozen years that remained to her. Exiled from her adopted home in Mexico, Modotti moved around Europe for a while, finally settling in Moscow where, by most accounts, she joined a branch of the Soviet secret police. During the next few years she engaged in various secretive missions of the behalf of the Russians (though probably for "World Revolution" in her mind) in France and Eastern Europe. When the Spanish Civil War erupted in 1936, Vidali (then known as "Comandante Carlos") and Modotti (using the pseudonym "Maria") left Moscow for Spain, where they stayed and worked until 1939. She worked with the famed Canadian Dr. Norman Bethune (who would later invent the mobile blood unit) during the disastrous retreat from Malaga in 1937. In April 1939, following the collapse of the Republican movement in Spain, Modotti left Spain with Vidali and returned to Mexico under a pseudonym. Modotti died in Mexico City in 1942 under what was viewed by some as suspicious circumstances. After hearing about her death, Diego Rivera suggested that Vidali had orchestrated it. Modotti may have 'known too much' about Vidali's activities in Spain, which included a rumoured 400 executions. Her grave is located within the vast Panten de Dolores of Mexico City. Poet Pablo Neruda composed Tina Modotti's epitaph, part of which can also be found on her tombstone, which also includes a relief portrait of Modotti by engraver Leopoldo Mendez: :''Pure your gentle name, pure your fragile life,'' :''bees, shadows, fire, snow, silence and foam,'' :''combined with steel and wire and'' :''pollen to make up your firm'' :''and delicate being.'' ==Murals by Diego Rivera in which Modotti can be found== *"''The Abundant Earth''", The National Agricultural School, Chapingo, 1926 In 1926 Diego Riveras wife Lupe Marn asserted that her separation from her husband was caused by his affair with Tina, a byproduct of Tinas nude modeling for him for the murals as "''the Abundant Earth''" at the National Agricultural School in Chapingo [1926-27]. Their affair lasted for about a year and he painted her five times in the Chapingo murals, including as "''The Earth Enslaved''", "''Germination''" and "''Virgin Earth''" *"''In the Arsenal''", Secretara de Educacin Pblica Building, Mexico City, 1928 This painting was part of the break between Modotti and Rivera caused by his expulsion from the Communist Party. The mural depicts Modotti passing out ammunition, no doubt for the revolution, while gazing at her then lover Mella, while Vidali peers over her shoulder. Modotti objected to Riveras use of her private life in such a public manner. ==Filmography== *''The Tigers Coat'', 1920; [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0188237/ Internet Movie Database (IMDb) entry] *''Riding With Death'', 1921 (as Tina Medotti); [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0012625/ IMDb entry] *''I Can Explain'', 1922; [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0013260/ IMDb entry] During this era, actresses were frequently expected to provide their own costumes and for these movies Modotti, a skilled seamstress, provided "garish plaid travel ensemble, satin cloak, bejeweled brassiere, feathered beret, harem pants, tie-dyed shawl and batiked gown." ==External links== * Article at Vindauga Gallery.com featuring [http://www.vindaugagallery.com/index.php/archives/15 several of Modotti's photographs] * [http://www.arte2000.net/FIF/Mostre/Modotti/info.htm Biography of Tina Modotti], Fondazione Italiana per la Fotografia (in Italian) * [http://www.arte2000.net/FIF/Mostre/Modotti/foto.htm Selection of Modotti's photographs], Fondazione Italiana per la Fotografia ==Further reading== #Albers, Patricia, ''Shadows, Fire, Snow – The Life of Tina Modotti'', Clarkson Potter, 1999 ISBN 0609600699 #Brenner, Anita,'' Idols Behind Altars – Modern Mexican Art and Its Cultural Roots,'' Dover Publications Inc. Mineola, NY 2002 [reprinted from 1929 edition] photographs by Modotti and Weston. ISBN 0486423034 (pbk.) #Cacucci, Pino, ''Tina Modotti – A Life'', St. Martin's Press, New York, NY 1999 ISBN 0312200366 #Constantine, Mildred, ''Tina Modotti – A Fragile Life'', Chronicle Books, 1993 ISBN 0811805026 #Herrera, Hayden, ''Frida – A Biography of Frida Kahlo,'' Harper Colophon Books, New York, NY 1983 ISBN 0060118431 #Hooks, Margaret, ''Tina Modotti, Photographer and Revolutionary'', Pandora, London 1993 ISBN 004440879X #Lowe, Sarah, ''Tina Modotti – Photographs'', Harry Abrams, Inc., Publishers NY, NY 1995 ISBN 0810942801 #Marnham, Patrick, ''Dreaming With His Eyes Open – A Life of Diego Rivera'', University of California Press, Berkeley, CA, 2000 ISBN 0679430423 (refers to 1998 edition) #Miller, Throckmorton, et al ''Tina Modotti – Photographs'', Robert Miller Galley, NY, NY 1997 ISBN 0944680526 #Naggar & Ritchin, ''Mexico Through Foreign Eyes – Visto por ojos extranjeros 1850 – 1990'', WW Norton and Co., NY,NY 1993 ISBN 0393034739 #Rochfort, Desmond, ''Mexican Muralists'', Chronicle Books, San Francisco 1998 ISBN 0811819280 #Warren, Beth Gates, ''Margrethe Mather & Edward Weston – A Passionate Collaboration'', WW Norton & Co. NY, NY 2001 ISBN 0393041573 #Wolfe, Bertram D. ''The Fabulous Life of Diego Rivera'', Stein & Day Publishers, NY, NY 1963 ISBN 0815410603 (refers to the 2000 pbk. ed.) 1896 births 1942 deaths Italian photographers Italian emigrants
I've moved the below ''comments'' to here, they don't belong in an article. --bodnotbod\">User:Bodnotbod__.....TALKQuietly)\">User_talk:Bodnotbod">User:Bodnotbod|bodnotbod\">User:Bodnotbod .....TALKQuietly)\">User talk:Bodnotbod 17:52, Aug 7, 2004 (UTC)
==Images==
Desperately needed for this entry are usable [see copyright issues elsewhere] images in at least these categories.
*Photographs by Tina Modotti
*Photographs of Tina Modotti
*Photograph of Diego Riveras murals with Modotti as a model.
:Many of her photographs still under copyright, mostly held by her estate. According to the [http://www.masters-of-photography.com/M/modotti/modotti.html Masters of Photography website], provided that we attribute them as a source and say who holds the copyright. User:Shirimasen — User_talk:Shirimasen 19:43, Mar 26, 2005 (UTC)
I added a (presumably) PD image of her in ''The Tiger's Coat''. Not terrific, but all the photographs I could find of her are still under copyright. User:Shirimasen — User_talk:Shirimasen 19:46, Mar 26, 2005 (UTC)
:I just added [http://www.arte2000.net/FIF/Mostre/Modotti/foto.htm this link] to Modotti's photographs at the Italian Fondazione Italiana per la Fotografia. I think all of these photos are from the 1920s, and I've heard that EU copyright law is less stringent than in the U.S. Would anyone with EU copyright knoweldge and/or Italian skills be interested in checking this out? –dablaze">User:Dablaze 02:35, Mar 27, 2005 (UTC)
==Links==
These will be left for someone else.
----
== more cleanup needed ==
I cleaned up the first six paragraphs of this article. After that, the author begins to drop names not otherwised referenced and makes use of unexplained abbreviations. Much of this makes little sense. Someone with better knowledge of the subject will have to complete the cleanup.
User:Rosquet 23:19, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)
:Rosquet - you should register as a user and we can talk more about this. User:Carptrash 05:35, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
== Did a Fair Amount ==
I did a fair amount of stuff, although I added no new content. Mainly reorganizing, wikifying, and trying to clarify.
User:Superm401 03:35, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)
== a funny coinsidence, if there is such a thing as coinsidence. ==
When I first wrote this piece I emersed myself in Modotti, a person that I have long been infatuated with, but burned out after writing a very sketchy piece and could not get up the feelings needed to return to it. Then a couple of weeks ago I was interviewed by Daniel Pink for his Wired story on Wikipedia. At that time I mentioned to him about my incomplete Modotti article. Almost immediately folks began showing up and doing the work that I seemed incapable of performing. This makes me feel good about myself, good about Tina and mostly, good about wikipedia. [postdated] User:Carptrash 22:26, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Maybe the copyedit tag helped...
At any rate, the part about the painting too close to Mello and the affair and the peering from behind...it's very confusing; someone who knows the facts should restructure it to indicate at the least what "with whom she was trying to hide the affair" means: was Mello her beard while she was schtupping Rivera? Was she hiding her sex with Rivera from Mello? Was she doing Mello and hiding it from Rivera, who she was also doing? And it means nothing to us that Vidali is peering at her, as he's not been mentioned in the context of "the affair".
The phrase "...continuing to work under the cover of the Red Aid organization..." implies that we've been told she had been before, but there is no indication of that; perhaps an earlier statement of her joining the organization has gone missing. I've adjusted it to "...for whom she worked under cover..." just to make it flow as-is.
''Decamped'' seems such a prissy word, but it fits perfectly here in the wide-brimmed-hatted, artsy-commie spy world she inhabited.
User:Blair P. Houghton 03:57, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)
== Timeline & Stalinist purge questions ==
I commented out the following text (in mid-edit, so there may be some fragments in there):
:''Sometime in 1923 Modotti met muralist Diego Rivera, modeled for several of his paintings. began a yearlong affair with him after separating from Weston. During this time she turned more and more towards radical politics. Also in 1926, Diego Rivera's wife Lupe Marn asserted that her separation from her husband was caused by his affair with Modotti, who was modeling for him. The Modotti-Rivera affair lasted for about a year.''
:''She did not care for the fact that in one painting Rivera depicted her in close proximity to Mella, with whom Modotti was trying to hide her affair. Peering at her from behind is the ominous face of Vidali. About this Tina wrote to Weston, "Recently Diego has taken to painting details with an exaggerated precision. He leaves nothing to the imagination." This marked the end of her admiration of him as an artist, and perhaps as a communist as well. Later, after Rivera was expelled from the Communist Party for his Trotskyist leanings, she would denounce him as a traitor.''
I tried a lot with this, but there's no real timeline to work with -- I can't really figure out what happened when. Can anyone clarify the whole Diego Rivera affair timeline? In general terms? :-)
Also, the sentence that claims Modotti was involved in the Stalinist purges, was this in Spain or in Moscow? (The claim appeared in the Spanish Civil War paragraph, but I cut it for now.) What kind of involvement was it, or was it just a rumor?
--dablaze">User:Dablaze 05:12, Jan 16, 2005 (UTC)
:Well I started this article, so I guess i can . . . . if not finish it at least address some of these issues. So first thing tomorrow AM [after two cups of coffee].......................... User:Carptrash 05:27, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)
== Modotti as photographer ==
The article concentrates mostly on the fact that Modotti hung out and/or slept with several prominent artists and leftist political figures of her time, which doesn't seem in itself all that significant to me.
The one accomplishment she seems to have, though, is her work as a photographer. I think this article needs a meaty section on that area of her life, especially since the web searches I've done on her all talk about her primarily as a photographer. I don't know too much about her life, so I'm hoping someone else with more knowledge of Modotti could write this (Carptrash? :-), but it's definitely the missing piece of the puzzle here, AFAIC.
--dablaze">User:Dablaze 18:08, Jan 16, 2005 (UTC)
== Movies ==
Why was the movies list removed? Vandalism or was something wrong? I vote keep, if it comes down to democracy. User:Blair P. Houghton 21:52, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)
== Italian-American activist ==
it appears that someone has added, and then another removed Modotti from this list. I figure that she does not really belong on it because she was never an American. Now a list of Italian - Mexican activists . . . . . . . . .......... User:Carptrash 17:33, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)
#REDIRECT Tina Modotti
#REDIRECT Talk:Tina Modotti
See other meanings of words starting from letter:
Words begining with Tina_Modotti:
Tina_Modotti
Tina_Modotti
Tina_modotti
Tina_modotti
Tina Modotti
Tina Modotti (1896 – 1942) was born Assunta Adelaide Luigia Modotti Mondini in Udine, Italy. She was a photographer, model, silent film actress, and leftist who once playfully described her profession as "men." She acted in several silent movies in the early 1920s and later became a model for prominent photographers and artists of the time. By 1926, Modotti was an accomplished photographer in her own right, often publishing her work in left wing and Communist papers. Modotti emigrated to the United States in 1913 and settled in San Francisco. In 1918, she married Roubaix "Robo" de l'Abrie Richey and moved with him to Los Angeles in order to pursue a career in the movies. There she met the photographer Edward Weston and his assistant Margrethe Mather. By 1921, Modotti was Weston's favorite model and, by October of that year, his lover. Modotti's husband Robo seems to have responded to this by moving to Mexico in 1921. Following him to Mexico City, Modotti arrived two days after his death from smallpox on February 9, 1922. In 1923, Modotti returned to Mexico City with Weston and one of his four sons, leaving behind Weston's wife and remaining children. Modotti and Weston quickly gravitated toward the capital's bohemian scene, and used their connections to create an expanding portrait business. It was also during this time that Modotti met several political radicals and Communists, including three Mexican Communist Party officials who would all eventually become romantically linked with Modotti: Xavier Guerrero, Julio Antonio Mella, and Vittorio Vidali. By 1927, a much more politically active Modotti (she joined the Mexican Communist Party that year) found her focus shifting and more of her work becoming politically motivated. Around that period, her photographs began appearing in publications such as "Mexican Folkways", "Forma" and the more radically motivated "El Machete". Modotti is thought to have been introduced to photography as a young girl in Italy, where her uncle, Pietro Modotti, maintained a photography studio. Years later in the U.S., her father opened a similar studio in San Francisco, where her interest undoubtably developed further. However, it was her relationship with Edward Weston that was to allow her to gravitate upward to become a world class photographer. Mexican photographer Manuel Alvarez Bravo divided Modottis career as a photographer into two distinct categories: "Romantic" and "Revolutionary." The former period includes her time spent as Westons darkroom assistant, office manager and, finally, creative partner. Together they opened a portrait studio in Mexico City and were commissioned to travel around Mexico taking photographs for Anita Bremmers book, "Idols Behind Altars." During this time she also became the photographer of choice for the blossoming Mexican mural movement, documenting the works of Jos Clemente Orozco and Diego Rivera. Many of her pictures of flowers originate from that time. By December 1929, an exhibition of Tina Modottis work was billed as "The First Revolutionary Photographic Exhibition In Mexico." She had reached the zenith of her career as a photographer. Within a year she was to put her camera aside when she was deported from Mexico and, with only a few exceptions, was not to pick it up again in the dozen years that remained to her. Exiled from her adopted home in Mexico, Modotti moved around Europe for a while, finally settling in Moscow where, by most accounts, she joined a branch of the Soviet secret police. During the next few years she engaged in various secretive missions of the behalf of the Russians (though probably for "World Revolution" in her mind) in France and Eastern Europe. When the Spanish Civil War erupted in 1936, Vidali (then known as "Comandante Carlos") and Modotti (using the pseudonym "Maria") left Moscow for Spain, where they stayed and worked until 1939. She worked with the famed Canadian Dr. Norman Bethune (who would later invent the mobile blood unit) during the disastrous retreat from Malaga in 1937. In April 1939, following the collapse of the Republican movement in Spain, Modotti left Spain with Vidali and returned to Mexico under a pseudonym. Modotti died in Mexico City in 1942 under what was viewed by some as suspicious circumstances. After hearing about her death, Diego Rivera suggested that Vidali had orchestrated it. Modotti may have 'known too much' about Vidali's activities in Spain, which included a rumoured 400 executions. Her grave is located within the vast Panten de Dolores of Mexico City. Poet Pablo Neruda composed Tina Modotti's epitaph, part of which can also be found on her tombstone, which also includes a relief portrait of Modotti by engraver Leopoldo Mendez: :''Pure your gentle name, pure your fragile life,'' :''bees, shadows, fire, snow, silence and foam,'' :''combined with steel and wire and'' :''pollen to make up your firm'' :''and delicate being.'' ==Murals by Diego Rivera in which Modotti can be found== *"''The Abundant Earth''", The National Agricultural School, Chapingo, 1926 In 1926 Diego Riveras wife Lupe Marn asserted that her separation from her husband was caused by his affair with Tina, a byproduct of Tinas nude modeling for him for the murals as "''the Abundant Earth''" at the National Agricultural School in Chapingo [1926-27]. Their affair lasted for about a year and he painted her five times in the Chapingo murals, including as "''The Earth Enslaved''", "''Germination''" and "''Virgin Earth''" *"''In the Arsenal''", Secretara de Educacin Pblica Building, Mexico City, 1928 This painting was part of the break between Modotti and Rivera caused by his expulsion from the Communist Party. The mural depicts Modotti passing out ammunition, no doubt for the revolution, while gazing at her then lover Mella, while Vidali peers over her shoulder. Modotti objected to Riveras use of her private life in such a public manner. ==Filmography== *''The Tigers Coat'', 1920; [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0188237/ Internet Movie Database (IMDb) entry] *''Riding With Death'', 1921 (as Tina Medotti); [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0012625/ IMDb entry] *''I Can Explain'', 1922; [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0013260/ IMDb entry] During this era, actresses were frequently expected to provide their own costumes and for these movies Modotti, a skilled seamstress, provided "garish plaid travel ensemble, satin cloak, bejeweled brassiere, feathered beret, harem pants, tie-dyed shawl and batiked gown." ==External links== * Article at Vindauga Gallery.com featuring [http://www.vindaugagallery.com/index.php/archives/15 several of Modotti's photographs] * [http://www.arte2000.net/FIF/Mostre/Modotti/info.htm Biography of Tina Modotti], Fondazione Italiana per la Fotografia (in Italian) * [http://www.arte2000.net/FIF/Mostre/Modotti/foto.htm Selection of Modotti's photographs], Fondazione Italiana per la Fotografia ==Further reading== #Albers, Patricia, ''Shadows, Fire, Snow – The Life of Tina Modotti'', Clarkson Potter, 1999 ISBN 0609600699 #Brenner, Anita,'' Idols Behind Altars – Modern Mexican Art and Its Cultural Roots,'' Dover Publications Inc. Mineola, NY 2002 [reprinted from 1929 edition] photographs by Modotti and Weston. ISBN 0486423034 (pbk.) #Cacucci, Pino, ''Tina Modotti – A Life'', St. Martin's Press, New York, NY 1999 ISBN 0312200366 #Constantine, Mildred, ''Tina Modotti – A Fragile Life'', Chronicle Books, 1993 ISBN 0811805026 #Herrera, Hayden, ''Frida – A Biography of Frida Kahlo,'' Harper Colophon Books, New York, NY 1983 ISBN 0060118431 #Hooks, Margaret, ''Tina Modotti, Photographer and Revolutionary'', Pandora, London 1993 ISBN 004440879X #Lowe, Sarah, ''Tina Modotti – Photographs'', Harry Abrams, Inc., Publishers NY, NY 1995 ISBN 0810942801 #Marnham, Patrick, ''Dreaming With His Eyes Open – A Life of Diego Rivera'', University of California Press, Berkeley, CA, 2000 ISBN 0679430423 (refers to 1998 edition) #Miller, Throckmorton, et al ''Tina Modotti – Photographs'', Robert Miller Galley, NY, NY 1997 ISBN 0944680526 #Naggar & Ritchin, ''Mexico Through Foreign Eyes – Visto por ojos extranjeros 1850 – 1990'', WW Norton and Co., NY,NY 1993 ISBN 0393034739 #Rochfort, Desmond, ''Mexican Muralists'', Chronicle Books, San Francisco 1998 ISBN 0811819280 #Warren, Beth Gates, ''Margrethe Mather & Edward Weston – A Passionate Collaboration'', WW Norton & Co. NY, NY 2001 ISBN 0393041573 #Wolfe, Bertram D. ''The Fabulous Life of Diego Rivera'', Stein & Day Publishers, NY, NY 1963 ISBN 0815410603 (refers to the 2000 pbk. ed.) 1896 births 1942 deaths Italian photographers Italian emigrants
Tina Modotti
I've moved the below ''comments'' to here, they don't belong in an article. --bodnotbod\">User:Bodnotbod__
Tina modotti
#REDIRECT Tina Modotti
Tina modotti
#REDIRECT Talk:Tina Modotti
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