Anita Brenner

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Anita Brenner recorded by Tina Modotti in 1926

Anita Brenner (born August 13, 1905 in Aguascalientes , Mexico , † December 1, 1974 in Aguascalientes, Mexico) was a Mexican and American anthropologist, art critic, historian, journalist, children's author and translator.

Life

Anita Brenner (actually Hanna Brenner) was born in Aguascalientes , Mexico , the daughter of Latvian immigrants. In 1916, after the outbreak of the Mexican Revolution, she and her parents fled to San Antonio in the USA . When she was 18, she dropped out of college and returned to Mexico to study the local culture. In 1929 she published Idols Behind Altars , one of the first and to this day one of the most important critical studies of the origins of Mexican art . After four years in Mexico, she went to New York to do a PhD in anthropology from Columbia University . After 17 years in New York , she finally returned to Mexico, where she died in a car accident in 1974.

Mexico City in the 1920s

Through her studies, Anita Brenner came into contact with many avant-garde artists in Mexico in the 1920s. So she commissioned Edward Weston and Tina Modotti with the photographs for her book Idols Behind Altars . She also modeled one of Weston's most famous nudes. Her circle of friends also included Jean Charlot , Rufino Tamayo , José Clemente Orozco , Diego Rivera and David Alfaro Siqueiros . On the side she also worked as a journalist z. B. for the New York Times .

Mexico City in the 1950s and 60s

During this time Anita Brenner founded the magazine Mexico / This Month , which she published herself. She also wrote numerous children's books: I Want to Fly , The Boy Who Could Do Anything , Dumb Juan and the Bandits , A Hero by Mistake, and The Timid Ghost , all of which were illustrated by Jean Charlot . When she was about to be awarded the highest Mexican Order of Merit for foreigners, the Order of the Aztec Eagle , she refused on the grounds that she was not a foreigner.

Works

  • Idols Behind Altars: Modern Mexican Art and Its Cultural Roots. Payson & Clarke, New York 1929. New edition: Dover Publications, Mineola 2002, ISBN 978-0-486-42303-6 .
  • Your Mexican Holiday. GP Putnam, New York 1931.
  • The Influence of Technique on the Decorative Style in the Domestic Pottery of Culhuacan. Columbia University Press, New York 1934.
  • The Wind that Swept Mexico: The History of the Mexican Revolution 1910-1942. Harpers, New York 1943. New edition: University of Texas Press, Austin 1984, ISBN 978-0-292-79024-7 .

literature

  • Susannah Joel Glusker: Anita Brenner: A Mind of Her Own. University of Texas Press, Austin 1998, ISBN 978-0-292-72810-3 .
  • Nadia Ugalde, Carlos Monsiváis , Ana Indych, Alicia Azuela, Carol Miller, Susana Glusker: Visión de una época / Vision of an Age. RM Verlag, Barcelona 2007, ISBN 978-968-5208-78-9 .
  • Susannah Joel Glusker: Avant-Garde Art and Artists in Mexico: Anita Brenner's Journals of the Roaring Twenties. University of Texas Press, Austin 2010, ISBN 978-0-292-72184-5 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ "Sotheby's y Christie's, posibilidad no explorada del INBA: Ana Garduño" , La Jornada, December 9, 2010 (Spanish), accessed on December 11, 2010
  2. ↑ "Returning to her roots in Mexico at 18, Anita Brenner posed for photographer Edward Weston's 1925 abstract masterpiece, Pear-Shaped Nude." , Vanity Fair, August 1, 2004 (English), accessed on December 11, 2010
  3. ^ "Peter Morse: Jean Charlot's Technique in Children's Book Illustration" ( Memento of May 3, 2012 in the Internet Archive ), The Jean Charlot Collection (English), accessed on December 11, 2010
personal data
SURNAME Brenner, Anita
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Mexican and American anthropologist, art critic, historian, journalist, children's author and translator
DATE OF BIRTH August 13, 1905
PLACE OF BIRTH Aguascalientes , Mexico
DATE OF DEATH 1st December 1974
Place of death Aguascalientes , Mexico