Manuel Alvarez Bravo: Photographs and Memories (Aperture 147)

Manual Alvarez Bravo's photography was first introduced to an international audience in a prominent way in 1953, in issue No. 4 of Aperture. At the time, Aperture editor Minor White wrote about the photographer: "He sees with great facility. A friend writes that one has to put blinders on him til the destination of the day is reached, or he is out of film before he get there."

Now, forty-four years later, we are honored to celebrate Don Manuel's ninety-fifth year (and Aperture's forty-fifth anniversary) by continuing the tradition of publishing monographic issues devoted to the work of master photographers of our time. We feel especially fortunate to have had the collaboration of Don Manuel and his wife, Colette Alvarez Urbajtel (a serious photographer in her own right), in the selection of the images that comprise Manuel Alvarez Bravo: Photographs and Memories.

Frederick Kaufman's "Essay of Memories," based on extensive interviews he conducted with Don Manuel in 1996, was commissioned especially for this publication. In his richly descriptive and insightful essay, Kaufman weaves together Alvarez Bravo's recollections, biographical information, and Mexican history in order to illuminate the story of the photographer's life against the backdrop of a complex and ever-changing culture.