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The Crouched Ones

Photograph
1932-1934 (made), ca. 1975 (printed)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

Manuel Alvarez Bravo’s photographs from the 1930s show a detachment from the highly politicised art works of his contemporaries, such as the Mexican mural painters and the Surrealists. This image of a line of men seated at a bar exemplifies the compassionate yet unromantic way in which he captured everyday life. It is also typical of the way Bravo used light and shade to convey mood. The deep shadow that ominously blanks out the heads and features of the drinkers is contrasted with the luminosity of the lower part of the image, concentrated on the chains which join the bar stools. These might symbolise the chaining of the unidentified group to the bar and, by association, of the working man to alcohol.


Object details

Categories
Object type
TitleThe Crouched Ones (assigned by artist)
Materials and techniques
Gelatin-silver print
Brief description
'Los Agachados' (The Crouched Ones), 1934 by Manuel Alvarez Bravo.
Physical description
Photograph
Dimensions
  • Height: 18.4cm
  • Width: 24.2cm
Object history
Alvarez Bravo’s photographs show a detachment from the highly politicised artistic creation of his contemporaries such as the Mexican mural painters and the Surrealist movement. His work should not be seen as wholly autonomous, however, since he met and discussed photography with leading figures such as Paul Strand and Cartier-Bresson and he also shared with his Mexican contemporaries a concentration on the lives of Mexican people. This image showing a line of men seated at a bar is a good example of the compassionate yet unromantic way in which he represented everyday life.

‘He often brings our attention to the peripheral, or sub-dramatic, moments or transactions or places. It is often as though the photograph had virtually composed itself.’

Jane Livingstone, M. Alvarez Bravo, London, 1978

It is also typical of the short depth of field which Bravo used in his images; he tends rather to use light and shade to articulate mood. In this photograph the deep shadow ominously used to blank out the heads and features of the drinkers is contrasted with the luminosity concentrated in the lower part of the image and specifically on the chains which join the bar stools. The chains seem to symbolise the chaining of the unidentified group to the bar and, to take the symbolism a step further, of the working man to alcohol.
Historical context
Manuel Alvarez Bravo began to develop an interest in photography in his early twenties, buying his first camera in 1924. He met Tina Modotti in 1927, when she was working in Mexico City, and through her sent his portfolio to Edward Weston in 1929 who was impressed by Bravo’s work. He taught photography at the Academy of San Carlos in 1930 (when Diego Rivera was director) and again in 1932-3. He was commissioned in 1930 to photograph painted murals by Mexican artists including Frida Kahlo and David Siqueiros. During the 1930s Bravo was exposed to many artistic influences through meeting leading cultural figures, including Paul Strand in 1933 with whom he developed a close friendship, and the Surrealist poet and artist André Breton (who was living in Diego Rivera’s house in 1938). He also met Henri Cartier-Bresson in 1934 and they had a joint exhibition the following year which was shown in New York and Mexico. During the late 1940s and 1950s Bravo was employed as a photographer and cameraman at the Mexican Institute of Cinematography and carried out very little personal photographic work. He left the Institute in 1959 to begin the Editorial Foundation of Mexican Plastic Arts, which published fine art books of Mexican art in which many of Bravo’s photographs of Mexican material culture appeared. Bravo donated his early photographs to the Museum of Modern Art in Mexico in 1972. He died in 2002, in Mexico City.
Subject depicted
Summary
Manuel Alvarez Bravo’s photographs from the 1930s show a detachment from the highly politicised art works of his contemporaries, such as the Mexican mural painters and the Surrealists. This image of a line of men seated at a bar exemplifies the compassionate yet unromantic way in which he captured everyday life. It is also typical of the way Bravo used light and shade to convey mood. The deep shadow that ominously blanks out the heads and features of the drinkers is contrasted with the luminosity of the lower part of the image, concentrated on the chains which join the bar stools. These might symbolise the chaining of the unidentified group to the bar and, by association, of the working man to alcohol.
Collection
Accession number
232-1976

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Record createdFebruary 25, 2004
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