Born in North-Eastern Italy in 1896, Tina Modotti (Udine, 17 August 1896 - Mexico City, 5 January 1942) was an Italian artist, political activist and actress considered one of the greatest photographers of the early 20th century. Her life was marked by some of the most important historical events of the time: the emigration of Europeans to America, the birth of silent cinema in the United States, the post-revolutionary agrarian movements in Mexico, the rise of political muralism , the recovery of indigenous Mexican culture, the emancipation of women in the public sphere, the opposition between Stalinists and Trotskyists after the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the Spanish Civil War. Tina Modotti was introduced to the practice of photography thanks to Edward Weston; since the very beginning, her work has developed a very personal vision, which goes beyond formal teaching to become a language that addresses the great political and social challenges of which the Italian artist was a witness and protagonist. After brief stays in San Francisco and Los Angeles, Modotti went to live in Mexico, where she participated in the “Mexican Renaissance” and post-revolutionary cultural effervescence. Expelled in 1930 due to her political commitment to the communist party, Modotti then lived in the Soviet Union and after the mid-1930s in Spain where she participated in the civil war by managing military hospitals and organizing propaganda missions. In 1942 she died in Mexico City where she had taken refuge after the defeat of the Spanish republicans in 1939.
