El Señor de Papantla (The Man from Papantla)

Manuel Alvarez Bravo, artist

1902–2002

El Señor de Papantla (The Man from Papantla), 1934–1935

Portfolio/Series title: Photographs by Manuel Alvarez Bravo portfolio

Where object was made: Mexico

Material/technique: gelatin silver print

Dimensions:
Image Dimensions Height/Width (Height x Width): 23.6 x 18.2 cm
Image Dimensions Height/Width (Height x Width): 9 5/16 x 7 3/16 in
Mat Dimensions (Height x Width): 19 x 14 in

Credit line: Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Frederick M. Myers

Accession number: 1979.0150

Not on display

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Images

Label texts

Brosseau Center for Learning: Centenarians

Manuel Alvarez Bravo was a teenager when he first picked up a camera and began taking pictures. Initially self-taught, Alvarez Bravo’s style developed through study of foreign and local photography journals. André Breton included Alvarez Bravo in the Exposition of Surrealism he organized in 1940 in Mexico City. Although the artist never identified with Surrealism, it was a major theme in the analysis of his photographs throughout his career. Revealing the influence of his formative years following the Mexican Revolution of 1910, Alvarez Bravo would instead speak of his interest in representing the cultural heritage, peasant population, and Indigenous roots of the Mexican people in the face of rapid modernization.

Archive Label:
These photographs are the work of the still-living Mexican artist Manuel Alvarez Bravo. They were selected from the Spencer Museum of Art’s collection of works by the artist which includes both individual photographs and a Manuel Alvarez Bravo Portfolio. Representing six decades of Alvarez Bravo’s active production, the photo-graphs range from formal abstraction to straight-forward representation. In both, the artist captures a sense of place and his own national identity. While the individual photographs not included in the portfolio were printed at various times, those from the port-folio were printed in Mexico City in 1977. Photographs in the portfolio are titled in both Spanish and English, however, they are not necessarily exact translations.