Gelatin silver print, with artist's stamp on verso; depicting the Diego Rivera oil on canvas by the same name, the largest painting on canvas created by Rivera, depicting Oaxacan dancers performing the folk dance called zandunga, a traditional Mexican waltz, under a banana tree; sheet with an old fold, verso somewhat mottled, 9 x 7 1/2 in.
Baile en Tehuantepec was exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1930 and at MoMA in 1931. It is now in private hands. Modotti was born in Udine, Italy, but pursued acting in San Francisco, activism in Mexico, and picked up an interest in photography while involved with Edward Weston. Closely associated with Rivera and Frida Kahlo, and deeply supportive of the Communist Party, she eventually ended up in Cuba and then in exile around 1930. She spent a decade traveling from country to country in Europe and lost her life under suspicious circumstances at the age of forty-six while in a taxi on the way to see Pablo Neruda.
