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Fable of the Dog and the Cloud/[Fábula del Perro y de la Nube]

Creator

Mexican Photographer · 1902–2002

ArtistAuthor

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

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Date: 1930–1940
Medium: Gelatin silver print
Culture: Mexican
Department: Photographs
Institution: Getty Museum

Paul Strand eloquently described Manuel Alvarez Bravo's work as "rooted firmly in his love and compassionate understanding of his own country, its people, their problems and their needs." For Strand, Alvarez Bravo had mastered the medium of photography and used it "to speak with warmth about Mexico." Like many of Alvarez Bravo's photographs, this image illustrates the day-to-day struggle--and resourcefulness--of Mexico's poor. The ramshackle setting is the residence and workplace of a scrap collector, who has assembled a collection of artifacts in the hopes of attracting a potential buyer. Alvarez Bravo's title, *Fable of the Dog and the Cloud*, draws attention to the only two elements in the image that are capable of movement, implying that the collector's stagnant goods will remain unsold.

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