Although a scene of five workers sitting at a lunch counter is a seemingly ordinary subject, Mexican photographer Manuel Álvarez Bravo transfigures it into something mysterious and extraordinary. The anonymity of the workers in The Crouched Ones—backs to the camera and heads hidden in the dark shadows—creates a sense of intrigue. Inspired by the literary movement known as magical realism, Álvarez Bravo blends the supernatural and the everyday, elevating his subjects to working-class heroes.

Álvarez Bravo's career began at the height of the Mexican Renaissance, a period of great intellectual and cultural exchange between artists such as Frida Kahlo, Jose Clemente Orozco, and Diego Rivera. Álvarez Bravo adopted many of the ideas from this period, such as the emphasis on Mexican tradition, socialist realism, and magical realism. His unique style is the result of pairing these indigenous influences with international ones, particularly ideas of French Surrealism articulated by writer André Breton. As the leading figure of Modernist photography in Mexico, Álvarez Bravo guided a generation of Mexican photographers.