“MEXICO’S GREATEST PHOTOGRAPHER AND A WORLD MASTER OF HIS ART”: LIMITED FIRST EDITION IN ENGLISH, 100 YEARS, 100 DAYS, SCARCE CENTENARY TRIBUTE TO THE ART OF MANUEL ÁLVAREZ BRAVO

BRAVO, Manuel Álvarez. 100 Years, 100 Days. (Madrid): Turner, (2001). Large square quarto, original blind-stamped gray cloth, original photographic dust jacket. $750.

Limited first edition in English, one of 1000 copies, with 101 exceptional full-page tritones of photographs selected by Bravo from original silver gelatin prints, published in honor of his 100th birthday, including celebratory essays by Langston Hughes, Diego Rivera, Paul Strand and others.

This handsomely produced centenary tribute to Manuel Álvarez Bravo appeared shortly before his death in October 2002. Widely renowned as “Mexico’s greatest photographer and a world master of his art, Bravo was a leader of the artistic renaissance that flowered after the Revolution of 1910… His subject became workers and peasants and Indian life in the provinces. But Bravo almost always managed to portray them in unconventional ways and through compelling images” (New York Times). This scarce edition presents 101 tritone plates of photographs personally selected by Bravo and features many of his best-known works, such as “The Good Reputation Sleeping” (1939), “Striking Worker Murdered” (1934), “The Crouched Ones” (1934) and “Barber” (1924). To Paul Strand, Bravo’s distinctive artistry uniquely evoked “the Mexican graphic tradition of Posada and the great leaders of the Mexican muralist art who were born of the Mexican Revolution: Orozco, Rivera and Siqueiros.” In “Facing Time,” a poem dedicated to Bravo and printed within, Octavio Paz wrote of him, “The eye thinks, the thought sees, the sight touches, the words burn.” With an introduction by Carlos Monsiváis, and selected essays by figures such as Langston Hughes, Diego Rivera, Paul Strand and Nissan N. Pérez. Limited edition in English published coincident with Spanish edition of 6000 copies. See Parr & Badger II:98.

A fine copy.