TINA MODOTTI (1896-1942)
Portrait of Antonieta Rivas Mercado. Silver print, the image measuring 9¼x7¼ inches (23.5x18.4 cm). 1929

Provenance: Private dealer in Mexico City, 1993; to the Collection of Margaret Hooks & Michael Tangeman

This is a rare print of a portrait made by Modotti in 1929 of Antonieta Rivas Mercado, the wealthy writer and arts patron taken during a professional sitting commissioned by Rivas Mercado.

"It was probably through a painter close to this [Contemporáneos] group, Manuel Rodríguez Lozano, the former husband of Nahui Olin, that Tina came into contact with the wealthy arts patron, Antonieta Rivas Mercado. Tina made a series of portraits of her and Rodriguez Lozano [. . .] Tina's portraiture of Mexican high society at this time also included the Rivas Mercado family" (Hooks, Margaret, Tina Modotti: Photographer and Revolutionary, (HarperCollins, 1993) p. 188

Reproduced: Margaret Hooks, Tina Modotti: Photographer and Revolutionary (HarperCollins, 1993), page 201
Margaret Hooks, Tina Modotti: Aperture Masters of Photography series (New York: Aperture Foundation, 1999), p. 65
Margaret Hooks, Tina Modotti (Phaidon Press, 2002), pl. 50