Lola Alvarez Bravo
| Lola Alvarez Bravo | |
|---|---|
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Self-Portrait, Alvarez Bravo, 1950
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| Born |
Dolores Martinez de Anda April 3, 1903 Lagos de Moreno, Jalisco, Mexico |
| Died | July 31, 1993 (aged 90) Mexico City, Mexico |
| Nationality | Mexican |
| Known for | Photography |
| Spouse(s) | Manuel Alvarez Bravo |
Lola Álvarez Bravo (April 3, 1903 – July 31, 1993) was a Mexican photographer. Serving as a key figure in the post-revolution Mexican renaissance.
She was born Dolores Martinez de Anda to wealthy parents in Lagos de Moreno, Jalisco, Mexico. Her mother, Sara de Anda, died when Lola was two years old and her father, Gonzalo Martinez, died of a heart attack five years later in 1916 and Lola was then taken in by her half brother. She and her brother were sent to live with their older half brother in Mexico City. She received a traditional education at Colegio del Sagrado Corazón.
She is quoted as saying I don't know why since childhood, I had the idea that I wanted to do something not everybody did. What I've hated most about my life is that they order me around and they limit my freedom.'
In 1925 she married her longtime friend Manuel Álvarez Bravo and moved to Oaxaca where Manuel was an accountant for the federal government and Lola produced her first photographs. They moved back to Mexico City and had a son, Manuel in 1927. Lola and Manuel Sr. had marital problems, separated in 1934, and finally divorced in 1948.
Manuel had taken up photography as an adolescent; he taught Lola and they took pictures together in Oaxaca. Manuel also taught her 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 Álvarez Bravos separated in 1934 but retained the Alvarez Bravo name.
In the 1930s, just after her separation from Manuel, Álvarez Bravo worked as an elementary school art teacher and soon after took a position at the Department of Education cataloging photographs. She met the minister of education by chance and was asked to photograph him. He loved her work and showed her photographs to some influential people which got her a job in the mid-1930s as the chief photographer for El Maestro Rural (The Rural Teacher). El Maestro Rural was a magazine published by the secretary of public education aimed at the group of young teachers that were being hired by the progressive administration.
She had her first solo art exhibition in 1944, at Mexico City's Palace of Fine Arts. Multiple solo and group exhibits were to follow afterwards.
She photographed schools, factories, farms, orphanages, fire stations, and hospitals throughout Mexico to accompany the magazine's articles. Álvarez Bravo is probably best known however for the photographs she took in the 1940s of her close friend, Frida Kahlo. In the adjacent image, Álvarez Bravo depicts the pain Kahlo suffered after she was in a bus accident and in her relationship with Diego Rivera.
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