Born and raised in Mexico City, where he spent most of his career, Manuel Álvarez Bravo (Mexican, 1902-2002) was one of the most important figures in 20th century Latin American photography. Although he took art classes at the Academy of San Carlos, his photography was mostly self-taught, but he was savvy to the emerging international artistic avant-garde. Considered to be one of the founders of modern photography, his work extends from the late 1920’s to the 1990’s. He was a key figure from the period following the Mexican Revolution—often called the Mexican Renaissance—in which arts and literature flourished. This “Renaissance” owed to the happy—though not always tranquil—marriage between a desire for modernization and the search for an authentic national identity with Mexican roots, in which archaeology, history and ethnology played an important role.

Support for this exhibition has been provided, in part, by the Ringling Endowment at the Florida State University Foundation.

Paid for in part by Sarasota County Tourist Development Tax Revenues.

Image: Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Mexican, 1902 – 2002, El ensueño (The daydream), 1931; printed 1974, Gelatin silver print, Courtesy of Stan and Nancy Kaplan, 2019, IL2019.17.44  © Colette Urbajtel/Asociación Manuel Álvarez Bravo