Hands Washing

1923–1926

Studio with Weston and Mexico City's bohemia

With Weston, Modotti opens a portrait studio in Mexico City and quickly gravitates toward the capital's bohemian scene, and through it into a community of cultural and political avant-gardists — Frida Kahlo, Lupe Marín, Diego Rivera, Jean Charlot; she also befriends Siqueiros. Weston, moved by the landscape and folk art of Mexico, creates abstract works, while Modotti is captivated by the country's people and blends this human interest with a modernist aesthetic.

November 1926

Weston leaves Mexico; meeting the Communists

Weston leaves Mexico and returns to California. During this time Modotti meets political radicals and Communists, among them three Mexican Communist Party leaders — Xavier Guerrero, Julio Antonio Mella and Vittorio Vidali — who would all eventually become romantically linked with her.

1927

Joins the Mexican Communist Party

Modotti joins the Mexican Communist Party and becomes far more politically active: her focus shifts, and more and more of her work becomes politically motivated. The Mexican photographer Manuel Álvarez Bravo divided her photographic career into two categories, “Romantic” and “Revolutionary”.

1929

Mella assassinated; Modotti arrested

Julio Antonio Mella is assassinated while walking in the street with Modotti from the offices of Red Aid; Modotti is arrested at once but later released and cleared of his murder.

December 1929

One-woman retrospective at the National Library

A one-woman retrospective of Modotti's later work opens at the National Library; it is advertised as “The First Revolutionary Photographic Exhibition in Mexico”.

1929–1930

Interrogations and a press campaign after the attempt on the president

After an attempt on the life of Mexican President Pascual Ortiz Rubio, Modotti — a target of both the Mexican and Italian political police — is questioned about both crimes amid an anti-communist, anti-immigrant press campaign that depicts “the fierce and bloody Tina Modotti” as the perpetrator. A Catholic zealot, Daniel Luis Flores, was later charged with shooting Ortiz Rubio, and José Magriñat was arrested for Mella's murder.