Old Is Gold

The Dreamer: Manuel Alvarez Bravo

Manuel Alvarez Bravo was the stalwart for the rising art of photography in Latin America of the 20th century. While in his developing years, Bravo came under the influence of an intellectual avant-garde which included some famous contemporaries of his time such as Octavio Paz, Diego Rivera as well as Xavier Villaurrutia. He had a thinking eye, different and very much Mexican. He was once very famously quoted as saying: “Down here, everything is symbol and mystery.” His oeuvre mainly consisted of vision, illusion, dreams and even metaphors. He was rightly called the “poet of lens” for expressing the essence of Mexican culture from behind the lens.