Manuel Álvarez Bravo, on view at Yancey Richardson from September 10 to October 17, 2026, presents a selection of iconic photographs by the legendary Mexican artist, coinciding with RAGE, the gallery's exhibition of new work by Tania Franco Klein. Considered one of the most important photographers in the history of the medium, Álvarez Bravo (1902–2002) is regarded as a towering figure both in Mexico and in the history of Modernism in Latin America. With photographs that range from nudes, still lifes, and quiet street scenes to portraits and records of political violence, he used photography to explore the subtle mysteries laying just beneath the surface of the perceptible.
Initially self-taught, Álvarez Bravo's photography developed through his study of foreign and local photography journals, where he first encountered the work of Edward Weston and Tina Modotti, both of whom came to Mexico in 1923. Modotti became a close colleague and supporter, introducing him to the artists of Mexico's avant-garde, including Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo. Mexico was a cultural hub for many in the international avant-garde in these years, such as André Breton, who included Álvarez Bravo in the Paris exhibition Mexique in 1939 and then the Exposition of Surrealism in 1940 in Mexico City. Although Álvarez Bravo downplayed the relationship of his work to Surrealism, the association has endured to this day. He presented more than 150 solo exhibitions and participated in more than 200 collective exhibitions during his lifetime, influencing generations of photographers including Graciela Iturbide.
The photographs in the exhibition explore the way Álvarez Bravo transformed scenes of quiet and solitude into powerful forms of metaphor and suggestion. In La Buena Fama Durmiendo (Good Reputation Sleeping) and El Soñador (The Dreamer), subjects are shown lost in slumber, while in El Ensueño (The Daydream) a young woman is caught up in the transportive act of daydreaming. Each of these figures is etched into their specific material settings while at the same time led elsewhere by their imagination and Álvarez Bravo's framing and treatment of light. In other images, such as Retrato de lo Eterno (Portrait of the Eternal) and Los Agachados (The Crouched Ones), he uses light and deep shadow to completely alter otherwise commonplace moments, showing how the photographic image can introduce a mode of perception that not only expands our understanding of the world, but also complicates—even unsettles—the presumption of its familiarity.
Yancey Richardson, located at 525 West 22nd Street in New York, presents work by established and emerging photographers from the 20th century to the present. The gallery's exhibition of Álvarez Bravo's work offers visitors a chance to encounter photographs that have become touchstones of Latin American modernism, images that continue to reveal new layers of meaning more than two decades after the artist's death at age 100. The show remains on view through October 17, providing a rare opportunity to see original prints by a photographer whose influence extends far beyond the borders of his native Mexico.
Image: Manuel Álvarez Bravo, La hija de los danzantes (The Daughter of the Dancers), 1933. © Manuel Álvarez Bravo. Courtesy of the artist and Yancey Richardson, New York.
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