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For the Sheep's Wool/[Por La Lana y Por Borrego]

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: 1932
Medium: Gelatin silver print
Culture: Mexican
Department: Photographs
Institution: Getty Museum
Object ID: b90a5f83-e0ca-42dd-8072-adc3967afb32

Manuel Alvarez Bravo's photograph of a sheep lying dead in the road directly invokes Christian iconography, which often depicts Jesus as the lamb of God, sacrificed for the sins of mankind. The image reflects Alvarez Bravo's deep roots in a hybrid Mexican culture that fuses Spanish Catholicism with ancient Mexican mythology. This photograph was exhibited alongside the work of Marcel Duchamp, Frida Kahlo, Pablo Picasso, and Man Ray in the 1940 International Exhibition of Surrealism held in Mexico City.

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