Tina Modotti

Telephone Wires, Mexico

1924

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Tina Modotti

Telephone Wires, Mexico

Tina Modotti

Telephone Wires, Mexico

1924

Physical Qualities Platinum print, Mount: 454 x 337 mm. (17 7/8 x 13 1/4 in.) Image/Sheet: 230 x 162 mm. (9 1/16 x 6 3/8 in.)

Credit Line Purchase with exchange funds from the Edward Joseph Gallagher III Memorial Collection; and partial gift of George H. Dalsheimer, Baltimore

Object Number 1988.474

During her time in Mexico, Tina Modotti used her camera to document the murals of Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco (see the publications in the nearby case). At the same time, she created a remarkable series of photographs of Mexican people and still lifes. Here Modotti took as her subject the network of telephone wires that were being installed across the country to interconnect and modernize Mexico. Modotti turned her camera upward, using the abstract design of wires to create a skyscape that implies a long stretch of invisible land beneath.

Prakapas Gallery, New York, May, 1984

Jan Howard, BMA, "The Collector's Eye: Photographs from the Museum's Dalsheimer Colelction," 17 September - 19 November, 1989.

Jan Howard, BMA, "Abstract Photographs," 22 March - 25 June 1995.

Sarah M. Lowe, The Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, September 16 - November 26, 1995 and the Museum Fine Arts, Houston, December 17, 1995- February 25, 1996, "Tina Modotti, Photographs." (two venues only)

Darsie Alexander, BMA, 'Mechanical Form/Mechanical Vision,' December 12, 2001-April 7, 2002.

Rena Hoisington, BMA, "Looking through the Lens: Photography 1900-1960," 16 March - 8 June 2008.

Rena Hoisington, BMA, "Crossing Borders: Mexican Modernist Prints," November 19, 2017 - March 11, 2017.

Walsh, George, Colin Naylor, and Michael Held, eds., Contemporary Photographers. New York: St. Martin's Press, in copy with MacMillan Press, Ltd., 1982, ill. p. 524.

Beals, Carlton, 'Tina Modotti,' Creative Art, Vol. IV, #2. Feb. 1929, p. XLV reproduces 'Telephone Wires.'

Lowe, Sarah M. Tina Modotti Photographs. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc. in association with the Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1995, ill. pl. 28, p. 26-27.

"The Baltimore Museum of Art: Celebrating a Museum," The Baltimore Museum of Art, 2014, p. 231.

Inscribed: Recto: on mount, at lower right, in graphite:"Tina Modotti - 1925; Verso: none

Markings: None