Label Text“What I like about his work is the quality of transmutation. The nude he did of me looks like a pear. The hand of Amado Galván with the bowl it is shaping looks like something growing . . . without in the least alienating objects from their own naturaleza [inherent nature].” —Anita Brenner, journal entry, Friday, February 12, 1926
The sitter of this portrait, Anita Brenner (1905–1974), was born in Aguascalientes, Mexico, but fled with her family to San Antonio during the Mexican Revolution. Brenner relocated to Mexico City, in 1923, as an aspiring writer and became part of the vibrant post-revolutionary circle of artists and intellectuals that included Edward Weston and Tina Modotti, who both photographed her on several occasions.
Brenner’s groundbreaking publication Idols Behind Altars: Modern Mexican Art and Its Cultural Roots (1929) features Weston’s and Modotti’s photographs and made Mexican art and culture accessible to readers in the United States.
(Lana Meador, 2017)