Manuel Alvarez Bravo

Manuel Álvarez Bravo was a Mexican photographer. He came from a family of artists, and met several other prominent artists who encouraged his work when he was young, including Tina Modotti and Diego Rivera.

Manuel Álvarez Bravo (1902- 2002) was a Mexican photographer.

He came from a family of artists, and met several other prominent artists who encouraged his work when he was young, including Tina Modotti and Diego Rivera.

He studied painting and music at the Academia Nacional de Bellas Artes in 1918, but did not begin experimenting with photography until the mid 1920's. Though he was never formally a member of the surrealist movement, his work displays many characteristics of surrealism, and he was exposed to many of its founders. His work often suggests dreams or fantasies, and he frequently photographed inanimate objects in ways that gave them humanistic qualities.

His work was often political, referencing the turmoil of the Mexican Revolution both directly and indirectly. One of his most famous photographs, Obrero en huelga, asesinado (Striking Worker, Assassinated) depicts the face of a bloodied corpse laying in the sun. He associated with many revolutionary artists working until his death in 2002.