Portrait of the Eternal
Artist:
Manuel Álvarez Bravo
(Mexican, 1902 - 2002)
Date: 1935, printed later
Medium: Gelatin silver print
Dimensions:
paper: 10 x 8 in. (25.4 x 20.3 cm)
image: 9 3/8 x 7 1/2 in. (23.8 x 19.1 cm)
Credit Line: Purchased with funds provided by the Mary Kathryn Lynch Kurtz Funds for the acquisition of Modern Latin American Art
Object number: 2008.3.3
Signed: signed "M. Alvarez Bravo, Mexico 100/100" in pencil on verso.
Throckmorton Fine Art, Inc.'s accession number on top left: #107513
SAMA accession number on top left.
Copyright: © Estate of Manuel Álvarez Bravo / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris
Label Text
Dramatic light and shadow partially obscure the woman in this portrait, which features Manuel Álvarez Bravo’s distinctive dreamlike imagery. The sitter is Isabel Villaseñor, an artist and poet who was highly regarded for her beauty and intelligence. Villaseñor's gaze is directed at a hand mirror, symbolic of ephemerality or the passage of time and echoed by the photograph’s title (Portrait of the Eternal). The act of looking, reflective of the medium of photography itself, is often the subject of Álvarez Bravo’s work.
(Lana Meador, 2021)
(Lana Meador, 2021)
Not on view
In Collection(s)
The San Antonio Museum of Art is in the process of digitizing its permanent collection. This electronic record was created from historic documentation that does not necessarily reflect SAMA's complete or current knowledge about the object. Review and updating of such records is ongoing.
This resource has been made possible in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities: Exploring the Human Endeavor.
