Metropolitan Museum of Art Ford Motor Company Collection, Gift of Ford Motor Company and John C. Waddell, 1987, Accession Number: 1987.1100.43
Curatorial description (Accessed: 16 October 2017)
From 1923 to 1926 Modotti and Edward Weston lived and worked together in Mexico City, operating a portrait studio to support their artistic endeavors. This brief period was characterized by an intensity of formal and technical exploration, as both sought to distill poetic essence from abstracted or fragmentary glimpses of the everyday. Here the well-trodden planks of a humble staircase inspired a modernist investigation of line and tone. By 1926 their collaboration had run its course, and Modotti began to explore social and political themes motivated by her involvement in the Communist Party.
