Objects of Desire : Modern Still Life

Manuel Alvarez Bravo (b. 1902) is one of the foremost figures of modern photography and the only photographer among the great Mexican artists of the 20th century.

This splendid book, which accompanies an exhibition opening at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, on February 19, 1997, is the most exemplary and most faithfully reproduced presentation available of Alvarez Bravo's life achievement.

Alvarez Bravo has produced work of exceptional quality throughout his long career.

Formal experiments of the 1920s were followed by modernist works inspired by such international trends as Surrealism.

In the early 1930s he developed a gifted personal style that suggests specific Mexican customs and rituals.

The majority of the book's 175 tritone plates were made from rare vintage prints assembled for the exhibition from private collections or furnished by the artist.

Many have never before been published and some have not been seen or exhibited since the 1930s.