LOL A ALVAREZ

BRAVO
Lola Alvarez Bravo was born in the state of Jalisco in 1907.She was born Dolores Martinez de
Anda to wealthy parents and moved to Mexico City as a young child, after her mother left the
family under mysterious circumstances. Her father died when she was a young teenager, and
she was then sent to live with the family of her half brother, living nearby in Mexico City. It
was here that she met the young Manuel Alvarez Bravo, a neighbor. They married in 1925
and moved to Oaxaca where Manuel was an accountant for the federal government. Lola
became pregnant but before she gave birth, they returned to Mexico City.

Lola was a Mexican photographer. She was a key figure (along with Tina Modotti, Frida
Kahlo, Diego Rivera and her husband Manuel Álvarez Bravo) in Mexico's post-revolution
renaissance.

Manuel had taken up photography as an adolescent; he taught Lola and they took pictures
together in Oaxaca. Manuel also taught Lola how to develop film and make prints in the
darkroom. As he became more serious about pursuing a career in photography, she acted as
his assistant, although she also harbored a desire to become a photographer in her own
right. The Alvarez Bravo's separated in 1934 but she decided to maintain the Alvarez Bravo
name.

Lola needed to support herself and taught as well as worked in a government archives. But
she also continued to experiment with photography and in 1936 received her first real
commission photographing the colonial choir stalls of a former church.

Inspired by such photographers as Edward Weston and Tina Modotti, Lola established a
successful independent career. For 50 years, she photographed a wide variety of subjects,
making documentary images of daily life in Mexico's villages and city streets and portraits of
Stitching in the Breeze
The dream of the poor
This photo of 1940 is one of the most characteristic of the
work of Lola Alvarez Bravo, which focused on capturing urban
images in the then growing city of Mexico. The country was
beginning to change its agricultural vocation to a prosperous
industrial development. (Photographic collections Fundación
Televisa. Contemporary art collection).
I chose it because Lola Alvarez Bravo is certainly a symbol of the female energy
within Mexican photography, and manages to be the pointer of many Mexicans who
continue to make this art his passion.
• It's a symbol of what a 20-year-old miss wasn't supposed to do.Totally breaking up
with the stereotypes of "having tea and being a housewife". Lola Alvarez Bravo
decided to be an artist and we bet that she did not know the weight that her
surnames would have in the world of photography and would last until today.