MANUEL ÁLVAREZ BRAVO (1902-2002) Dia de todos los muertos [Day of the Dead].

MANUEL ÁLVAREZ BRAVO (1902-2002)
Dia de todos los muertos [Day of the Dead]. Platinum-palladium print, the image measuring 9⅛x6⅞ inches (23.2x17.5 cm.), the sheet 12⅝x9⅞ inches (32.1x25.1 cm.), with Bravo's signature and notation "México" in pencil on recto. 1933; printed circa 1990

Provenance: Galería Juan Martín, Mexico City; to the Present Owner

Other prints of this image are in the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), Brooklyn Museum, New York, and Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid

Taken in 1933 in Mexico City, this photograph is one of Manuel Álvarez Bravo's more recognizable images. The occasion is Mexico's annual Day of the Dead festival, and the high-contrast image depicts a young girl with a beaded crucifix and necklace, offering a calavera skull with the word AMOR (LOVE) written into its skeletal forehead - projecting the subtle irony that was a trademark of so much of Álvarez Bravo's photography. It is identified in a 1997 Aperture monograph on the photographer as having been taken in Mexico City's teeming La Merced market.

Reproduced: Manuel Álvarez Bravo, 100 Years, 100 Days (Madrid: Turner Publicaciones, 2001), pl. 31;
Susan Kismaric, Manuel Álvarez Bravo (The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1997), p. 97;
Frederick Kaufman, Manuel Álvarez Bravo: Photographs and Memories (New York: Aperture Foundation, 1997), p. 69