In 1923, after starring in a string of silent films, the 26-year-old Italian émigrée Tina Modotti shed her femme fatale persona and decamped for Mexico with her partner, the photographer Edward Weston. In the wake of the Mexican Revolution, Weston and Modotti landed in the midst of the country’s cultural renaissance, and while acting as both an apprentice and a muse for Weston, Modotti began working as a photographer in her own right.
She entranced the artists around her. Pablo Neruda, who eulogized her in a poem, wrote in his memoirs of his struggle to capture her essence, likening it to trying to capture fog in his hands. He could recount her face only in vagaries: “A pale oval framed by two black wings of hair, gathered at the back, and huge velvety eyes that go on watching the years.” Diego Rivera drew her in soft black chalk and asked her to photograph his murals. In the 1990s, Madonna signed on to portray Modotti after wrapping Evita, but the film never materialized.
