Getty Museum
Paisaje cactico (Cactus Landscape)
Creator
Manuel Álvarez BravoMexican Photographer · 1902–2002
All works by this person →A self-taught photographer, Manuel Alvarez Bravo purchased his first camera at age twenty while working at a government job. His earliest success at photography came around 1925, when he won first prize in a local photographic competition in Oaxaca. He returned to Mexico City, where he had been born, and in 1927 met Tina Modotti, who introduced him to a lively intellectual and cultural environment
More on Getty ULAN- Date
- negative 1969; print 1990s
- Medium
- Gelatin silver print
- Culture
- Mexican
- Department
- Photographs
- Institution
- Getty Museum
- Object ID
- 0eb978b6-2eed-4f4d-9d66-4f7cb1bef3ee
From the Getty Museum record
Manuel Alvarez Bravo often scrutinized the Mexican landscape, probing its jagged surfaces for signs of human intervention. In this photograph, unusual in his body of work, he depicted one of Mexico's many rugged geological formations. While the eroded, zigzagging slopes of this mountain range create a geometric pattern, the cacti further down provide textural interest. Alvarez Bravo is known for his patience and willingness to wait until exactly the right moment to make a photograph. The image was created when the sun was directly overhead so that shadows would not obscure the varied plant life on the mountain's surface. Gift of Daniel Greenberg and Susan Steinhauser
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