Manuel Álvarez Bravo
Luz Restirada

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Images(3)

Artist Manuel Álvarez Bravo (Mexican, 1902–2002)Mexican, 1902–2002

CultureMexican

Titles

Luz Restirada
Lengthened Light

Date1944, printed 1977

Place depictedMexico

MediumGelatin silver print

DimensionsImage: 9 1/2 × 6 15/16 in. (24.1 × 17.7 cm)
Sheet: 10 × 8 in. (25.4 × 20.3 cm)

Credit LineThe Allan Chasanoff Photographic Collection

Object number91.434

Not on view

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Department

Photography

Special Collections

Object Type

PHOTOGRAPHS

DescriptionManuel Álvarez Bravo’s direct, unmediated approach to photography was inspired by contemporary European aesthetics, yet he sought out subject matter that spoke to a particular Mexican identity rooted in socialist ideals. In Luz Restirada, nature’s design of light and shadow is made visible by the white sheet, just as in a photograph the effects of light on a prepared sheet of paper create a distinct image. This photograph—Álvarez Bravo’s artistic metaphor for the medium—celebrates the beauty, accessibility, and natural power of photography, which had become one of the principal instruments of nation-building following the Mexican Revolution.
ProvenanceAllan Chasanoff, New York; given to MFAH, 1991.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks

Signed in pencil, verso, lower right: M. Alvarez Bravo. Mexico.
Printed in purple, verso, bottom center on applied label: FROM THE COLLECTION OF // ALLAN CHASSANOFF

Signed in pencil, verso, lower right: M. Alvarez Bravo. Mexico.

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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