Posted by vrcvanderbilt on Wednesday, April 18, 2018 in Events, HART, Lectures, News, VRC.

Leonard Folgarait, Distinguished Professor of History of Art, will give an in-gallery walking tour of “Under the Mexican Sky: A Revolution in Modern Photography,” a current exhibit at the Hunter Museum of American Art, Chattanooga, on April 19. Folgarait is a specialist in Latin American art with a focus on Mexican art and photography. He is also the author of Seeing Mexico Photographed: the Work of Horne, Casasola, Modotti, and Álvarez Bravo.

Mexico City in the 1920s-30s was the scene of one of the great artistic flowerings of the twentieth century.  Like Paris in the aftermath of World War I, Mexico City after the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920) served as a magnet for international artists and photographers. These photographers were often commissioned by the Mexican government and helped create a modern vision for the country’s future. Through their exuberant melding of art, culture, and identity, photography blossomed into a modern art form.

On view through April 22, this exhibition explores the important role Mexico and Mexico City played in the development of international modernism through rare vintage photographs from the 1920s by Los Angelino Edward Weston and Hollywood silent film star-turned-photographer, Tina Modotti. It also includes stellar photographs from the 1930s by New Yorker Paul Strand, Frenchman Henri Cartier-Bresson, and Mexico’s Manuel Álvarez Bravo.

Folgarait’s gallery lecture and tour is part of the Art Wise: Distinguished Speakers at the Hunter series.

*Edward Weston (1886-1958), Rosa Covarrubias, 1926, vintage gelatin silver print, 9 x 6 3/4 inches. Collection of Michael Mattis and Judith Hochberg. Organized by art2art Circulating Exhibitions.