Manuel %C3%81lvarez Bravo


Manuel lvarez Bravo was Mexicos first principal artistic photographer and is the most important figure in 20thcentury Latin American photography. He was born and raised in Mexico City. While he took art classes at the Academy of San Carlos, his photography is selftaught. His career spanned from the late 1920s to the 1990s with its artistic peak between the 1920s to the 1950s. His hallmark as a photographer was to capture images of the ordinary but in ironic or surrealistic ways. His early work was based on European influences, but he was soon influenced by the Mexican muralism movement and the general cultural and political push at the time to redefine Mexican identity. He rejected the picturesque, employing elements to avoid stereotyping. Over his career he had numerous exhibitions of his work, worked in the Mexican cinema and established Fondo Editorial de la Plstica Mexicana publishing house. He won numerous awards for his work, mostly after 1970.

lvarez Bravo was born in Mexico City on February 4, 1902. His father was a teacher but pursued painting, photography and writing, producing several plays and his grandfather was a professional portrait maker. Because of this, Alvarez Bravo has early exposure to the medium. He grew up in the historic center of Mexico City behind the Cathedral, in one of the many former colonial buildings converted into apartments for the citys middle and lower classes. He was eight years old when the Mexican Revolution began. He could hear gunfire and came across dead bodies as a child. This would have an effect on his photography later.

Source: Wikipedia


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