Refracted Sunlight on Torso

summer 1920

Meets Tina Modotti and “Robo” Richey

In the summer of 1920 he meets Roubaix de l’Abrie Richey, known as “Robo”, and the woman he calls his wife, Tina Modotti, then known only as a stage and film actress (they were never married but pretended to be for the sake of his family). Weston and Modotti are immediately attracted to each other and soon become lovers; Richey knows of the affair but stays a friend and later invites Weston to come to Mexico and share his studio.

October – November 1922

New York: meeting Stieglitz

New York is the cultural centre of art photography and Alfred Stieglitz its most influential figure; Weston lacks the money for the trip, but his brother-in-law gives him enough to continue from Middletown. He spends most of October and early November in the city, where he meets the artist Charles Sheeler, the photographers Clarence H. White and Gertrude Käsebier, and Stieglitz himself, who tells him that his work and attitude reassure him.

1923

Robo’s death and the exhibition in Mexico

Soon after Weston returns from New York, Robo moves to Mexico and arranges a joint exhibition of his own work and photographs by Weston, Mather and a few others; in early 1923 he contracts smallpox and dies shortly before Modotti arrives. Grief-stricken, she nevertheless stays and carries out the exhibition; the show is a success and, due in no small part to his nude studies of Modotti, firmly establishes Weston’s artistic reputation in Mexico.

30 July – 11 August 1923

Sails for Mexico with Modotti and his son

On 30 July a steamer takes Weston, his son Chandler and Modotti on the extended trip to Mexico; his wife Flora and their other three sons wave goodbye from the dock, and Flora is reported to have called out to Modotti to take good care of her boys. They arrive in Mexico City on 11 August and rent a large hacienda outside the city.

17 October 1923

Exhibition at the Aztec Land Gallery

The exhibition, arranged within a month of his arrival, opens on 17 October to glowing press reviews; he is particularly proud of Marius de Zayas’s review saying that photography is beginning to be photography, for until now it has only been art.

1923–1924

Mexico changes the way he sees things

The different culture and scenery force him to look at things in new ways: he becomes more responsive to what is in front of him and photographs everyday objects such as toys, doorways and bathroom fixtures, as well as intimate nudes and portraits of Modotti, and writes in his Daybooks that the approach to photography is through realism. A second exhibition at the Aztec Land Gallery follows in 1924, and a steady stream of local socialites asks him for portraits.