Álvarez Bravo, Lola (1907–1993)

Lola Álvarez Bravo (b. 3 April 1907; d. 31 July 1993), Mexican photographer. A pioneering modernist photographer, Álvarez Bravo's career spanned six decades. Born in Lagos de Moreno, Jalisco, she studied photography in the 1920s under the tutelage of Manuel Álvarez Bravo, to whom she was married from 1925 to 1949. While some of her early imagery bears relation to his, by the 1930s she had developed a distinct pictorial language that evinces her deep interest in the cinema as well as her empathy for the Mexican people. Her oeuvre includes photographs documenting everyday urban and rural life; these compositions often emphasize the ironic, humorous, or poetic aspects of mundane events. Other bodies of work include landscapes, still lifes, portraits of Mexican artists and intellectuals, and innovative photomontages. Álvarez Bravo was active as a teacher, documentary photographer for governmental agencies, exhibition curator, and director of the prestigious Galería de Arte Contemporáneo in Mexico City (1951–1958), which mounted important exhibitions featuring the artists of the Mexican School. She died in Mexico City.

See alsoPhotography: The Twentieth Century.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

The most comprehensive study is Centro Cultural/Arte Contemporáneo, Lola Álvarez Bravo, fotografías selectas 1934–1985 (1992). See also Lola Álvarez Bravo, Recuento fotográfico (1982), which contains conversations with the artist and extensive illustrations; Olivier Debroise, Lola Álvarez Bravo, reencuentros (1989); Lola Álvarez Bravo, the Frida Kahlo Photographs (1991); and Elizabeth Ferrer, "Lola Álvarez Bravo: A Modernist in Mexican Photography," in History of Photography 18, no. 3 (1994): 211-218.

Additional Bibliography

Ferrer, Elizabeth. Lola Alvarez Bravo. New York: Aperture and London: Thames & Hudson, 2006.

Maiz-Peña, Magdalena. "Cuerpo fotográfico, subjetividad(es) y representación visual: Lola Alvarez Bravo y Frida Kahlo." Studies in Latin American Popular Culture 22 (2003): 193-206.

                                  Elizabeth Ferrer