In her brief years in Mexico in the 1920s, Tina Modotti evolved into a highly accomplished photographer. From the beginning, her concerns were balanced between the social and the formal, the documentary and the aesthetic. While Mexico City’s streets, culture, and politics fascinated her, the controlled confines of the studio offered her the opportunity to perfect her own photographic vision and technique.

The works she created on the streets and in her studio are linked by an assured and consistent visual sensibility. Roses, Mexico, Modotti’s most accomplished still life, demonstrates her ability to unite multiple forms into a cohesive and compelling whole. As in Campesinos (lot 9), Roses synthesizes a unified and harmonious composition from a multiplicity of similar parts. In Campesinos, the workers gather in a show of solidarity and strength. In Roses, a similar cohesion takes place, one that is less overtly political but perfectly in tune with her photographic vision.

The print offered here comes originally from the collection of Vittorio Vidali (1900–1983), Modotti’s close friend and political ally during the last years of her life. It was Vittorio Vidali who preserved Modotti’s photographs and negatives after her death, and these in turn were inherited by Vidali’s son Carlos, who has subsequently promoted Modotti’s work and reputation through exhibitions and museum donations.

In 1991, the year this print of Roses, Mexico, was sold at auction, The New York Times noted that it set a record not only for a work by Tina Modotti, but for any photograph sold at auction. In the 1990-1991 auction season in New York, this print of Roses bested works by El Lissitzky, Man Ray, and even Modotti’s own lover, Edward Weston, who came in a close second. Prints of the image are scarce. As of this writing, at least two prints have been located in private collections, and two in institutions. It is believed that this is one of only two early prints made by Modotti to appear at auction.