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

Allan Chasanoff Photographic Collection

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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