Tina Modotti Tina in un ritratto di Pietro Modotti_s (2) galleria 1_Tina Modotti biografia schematica
Studio Proposte d'Arte Soravito
Via Pracchiuso 33, Udine

Progetto culturale di Gianfranco Ellero

Con il patrocinio del Consiglio Regionale del Friuli Venezia Giulia



Tina Modotti Point

"Biografia schematica di Tina Modotti"

Le date importanti della sua vita. Le citta' significative della sua avventurosa esistenza

[segue: Emerografia 1989/1994]



Tina in un ritratto di Pietro Modotti

Who is Tina Modotti? (brief biography). The Italian Tina Modotti is one of the best photographers of twentieth century. She was born in Udine in 1896. The family moved to near Austria to work, and she spent much of her childhood living in Austria. In 1905, the family returned to Udine. Tina left school to work in a textile factory. In June of 1913 she traveled to San Francisco to join her father and sister. In about 1918 she met the American bohemian painter and poet Roubaix de l'Abrie Richey, who had a profound influence on Modotti's early artistic life. In 1920 and 1922 Tina Modotti became a silent film star in Hollywood (one film is visible on the Internet: The tiger's coat). In about 1920 she met the American already famous photographer, Edward Weston (married and with four children) and with him she developed a close personal relationship. She decided to travel with Weston to Mexico to learn photography and make a new life. From 1923 to 1930 she was able to support herself as a professional photographer and in December1929 she had her first one-woman exhibition at Mexico City's National Library. Like Weston, she gave importance to Straight Photography while other photographers photographed according to pictorialism (an emulation of painting using photography). Whilst Weston left Mexico in 1926 and returned to California, she became increasingly emerged in Mexican life and politics and her photography also became more political in subject matter. Modotti's reputation as a photographer was growing in these years and her relationships with important Mexican artists brought her commissions to photograph the Mexican Muralism movement, including murals by Rivera, Orozco, Siqueiros. In addition she published her work in various Mexican magazines and newspapers (es. Mexican Folkways and El Machete). Despite the exhibition's positive reception, she was arrested, unjustly, for the attempted murder of the new Mexican president, Pascual Ortiz Rubio. These events led to her deportation from Mexico in 1930,and marked the beginning of the end of the photographic activity. International Red Aid helped her to obtain a visa for Berlin, where she spent six months before moving on to Moscow to become a party worker. While working in Moscow, she met and started a relationship with the Italian revolutionary, Vittorio Vidali. The pair engaged in various missions together, possibly as Soviet agents. During the Spanish civil war, Modotti traveled to Spain in 1934, where she continued her humanitarian work for Red Aid. After the Fascist victory in 1939, she fled Spain for France and later she reached Mexico. In 1942 she died suddenly and rather mysteriously in a Mexico City taxi cab, on her way home from Hannes Meyer's house, where the poet Pablo Neruda was also as a guest. Tina Modotti was long overshadowed by her relationship with Edward Weston, and viewed as his muse and follower, rather than as a talented photographer. But, despite a short career in photography, she created splendid images that blend rigorous formalism and study of social change. Her images are not imitation of Weston's photography, but autonomous images: her photographs are currently believed to have surpassed Weston's. Her work is now a touchstone in the history of photography and confirm her place in art history.

I seguenti saggi del prof. Gianfranco Ellero sono a libera disposizione presso lo Studio Prposte d'arte Tina Modotti Point di via Pracchiuso 33, a Udine:
L'effetto Tina Modotti e altri sguardi obliqui, Centro stampa regionale, Udine, 2022
Tina Modotti. Piccola antologia della critica, stampato in proprio, Udine, 2021
Tina e gli altri Modotti. Antifascisti da fermare, Centro stampa regionale, Udine, 2020 (testo consultabile online in questo sito)
Tina Modotti. La ragazza di Pracchiuso, Regione autonoma Friuli Venezia Giulia Consiglio regionale, Udine, 2019.

1896 Udine, 1897 Klagenfurt, 1911 San Francisco, 1917 Los Angeles



1923 Citta' del Messico




1930 Berlino e Mosca, 1933 Parigi e Spagna, 1939 Citta' del Messico




[1942 Citta' del Messico]




EMEROGRAFIA 1989/1994

Tina Modotti in Friuli. Dai 50 anni della morte al Centenario della nascita. Emerografia di Livio Jacob e Pietro Colussi 1989/1994. Regestazione di Gianfranco Ellero

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fine emerografia 1989/1994

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