169-666: Tina Modotti (born Assunta Adelaide Luigia Modotti Mondini , August 16/17, 1896 – January 5, 1942) was an Italian American photographer, model, actor, and revolutionary political activist for the Comintern . She left her native Italy in 1913 and emigrated to the United States, where she settled in San Francisco with her father and sister. In San Francisco, Modotti worked as a seamstress, model, and theater performer and, later, moved to Los Angeles where she worked in film. She later became
338-684: A Jewish Italian immigrant, was one of the founders and first president of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York. Also during this period, there was a growing presence of Italian Americans in higher education. Vincenzo Botta was a distinguished professor of Italian at New York University from 1856 to 1894, and Gaetano Lanza was a professor of mechanical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for over 40 years, beginning in 1871. Anthony Ghio became
507-456: A Union Flag and an Italian flag with the words Dio e popolo, meaning "God and people." In 1861, Garibaldi himself volunteered his services to President Abraham Lincoln . Garibaldi was offered a major general's commission in the U.S. Army through the letter from Secretary of State William H. Seward to H. S. Sanford , the U.S. minister at Brussels , July 17, 1861. From 1880 to 1914, 13 million Italians migrated out of Italy , making Italy
676-807: A calamity. Amongst the works she made in the retablo manner in Detroit are Henry Ford Hospital (1932), My Birth (1932), and Self-Portrait on the Border of Mexico and the United States (1932). While none of Kahlo's works were featured in exhibitions in Detroit, she gave an interview to the Detroit News on her art; the article was condescendingly titled "Wife of the Master Mural Painter Gleefully Dabbles in Works of Art". Upon returning to Mexico City in 1934 Kahlo made no new paintings, and only two in
845-481: A career as an artist. Rivera recalled being impressed by her works, stating that they showed "an unusual energy of expression, precise delineation of character, and true severity ... They had a fundamental plastic honesty, and an artistic personality of their own ... It was obvious to me that this girl was an authentic artist". Kahlo soon began a relationship with Rivera, who was 21 years her senior and had two common-law wives. Kahlo and Rivera were married in
1014-592: A cargo of wine, and his wife Mary, who went on to own one of the oldest coffee houses in America, the Merchant Coffee House of New York on Wall Street at Water Street. Her Merchant Coffee House moved across Wall Street in 1772, retaining the same name and patronage. Today, the descendants of the Alberti-Burtis, Taliaferro, Reggio, and other early families are found all across the United States. This period saw
1183-458: A child, or clothed in different outfits, such as the Tehuana costume, a man's suit, or a European dress. She used her body as a metaphor to explore questions on societal roles. Her paintings often depicted the female body in an unconventional manner, such as during miscarriages, and childbirth or cross-dressing. In depicting the female body in graphic manner, Kahlo positioned the viewer in the role of
1352-469: A civil ceremony at the town hall of Coyoacán on 21 August 1929. Her mother opposed the marriage, and both parents referred to it as a "marriage between an elephant and a dove", referring to the couple's differences in size; Rivera was tall and overweight while Kahlo was petite and fragile. Regardless, her father approved of Rivera, who was wealthy and therefore able to support Kahlo, who could not work and had to receive expensive medical treatment. The wedding
1521-422: A convent. Kahlo later described the atmosphere in her childhood home as often "very, very sad". Both parents were often sick, and their marriage was devoid of love. Her relationship with her mother, Matilde, was extremely tense. Kahlo described her mother as "kind, active and intelligent, but also calculating, cruel and fanatically religious". Her father Guillermo's photography business suffered greatly during
1690-493: A dress inspired by her and Vogue Paris featuring her on its pages. However, her overall opinion of Paris and the Surrealists remained negative; in a letter to Muray, she called them "this bunch of coocoo lunatics and very stupid surrealists" who "are so crazy 'intellectual' and rotten that I can't even stand them anymore". In the United States, Kahlo's paintings continued to raise interest. In 1941, her works were featured at
1859-419: A farm boy from Oregon named Ruby Ritchie, the artist and poet assumed the more bohemian name Roubaix. In 1918, Modotti began a romantic relationship with him and moved with him to Los Angeles to pursue a career in the motion picture industry. Although the couple cohabited and lived as a "married couple", they were not married. She was listed as a U.S. citizen in the 1920 Los Angeles township census. Often playing
SECTION 10
#17328766323992028-586: A few small settlements. Italian navigators and explorers played a key role in the exploration and settlement of the Americas by Europeans . Genoese explorer Christopher Columbus ( Italian : Cristoforo Colombo [kriˈstɔːforo koˈlombo] ) completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean for the Catholic monarchs of Spain , opening the way for the widespread European exploration and colonization of
2197-632: A founding member of the Seminario de Cultura Mexicana, a group of twenty-five artists commissioned by the Ministry of Public Education in 1942 to spread public knowledge of Mexican culture. As a member, she took part in planning exhibitions and attended a conference on art. In Mexico City, her paintings were featured in two exhibitions on Mexican art that were staged at the English-language Benjamin Franklin Library in 1943 and 1944. She
2366-704: A gallery. With the aid of Marcel Duchamp , she was able to arrange for an exhibition at the Renou et Colle Gallery. Further problems arose when the gallery refused to show all but two of Kahlo's paintings, considering them too shocking for audiences, and Breton insisted that they be shown alongside photographs by Manuel Alvarez Bravo , pre-Columbian sculptures, 18th- and 19th-century Mexican portraits, and what she considered "junk": sugar skulls, toys, and other items he had bought from Mexican markets. The exhibition opened in March, but received much less attention than she had received in
2535-441: A group of musicians from Sicily to form a military band, later to become the nucleus of the U.S. Marine Band . The musicians included the young Venerando Pulizzi , who became the first Italian director of the band and served in this capacity from 1816 to 1827. Francesco Maria Scala , an Italian-born naturalized American citizen, was one of the most important and influential directors of the U.S. Marine Band, from 1855 to 1871, and
2704-517: A large-scale retrospective dedicated to the artist, entitled Tina Modotti: Photographs . Martha Chahroudi, the museum's curator of photography, organized the exhibition. To raise funds for the show, the singer Madonna auctioned her 1963 Mercedes-Benz. Madonna has become a major collector of Modotti's work. In 2006, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art organized an exhibition entitled Mexico as Muse: Tina Modotti and Edward Weston . Prior to
2873-536: A living from her art until the mid to late 1940s, as she refused to adapt her style to suit her clients' wishes. She received two commissions from the Mexican government in the early 1940s. She did not complete the first one, possibly due to her dislike of the subject, and the second commission was rejected by the commissioning body. Nevertheless, she had regular private clients, such as engineer Eduardo Morillo Safa, who ordered more than thirty portraits of family members over
3042-418: A man's suit and shorn of her long hair, which she had just cut off. Kahlo holds the scissors with one hand menacingly close to her genitals, which can be interpreted as a threat to Rivera – whose frequent unfaithfulness infuriated her – and/or a threat to harm her own body like she has attacked her own hair, a sign of the way that women often project their fury against others onto themselves. Moreover,
3211-429: A mirror placed above the easel, so that she could see herself. Painting became a way for Kahlo to explore questions of identity and existence. She explained, "I paint myself because I am often alone and I am the subject I know best." She later stated that the accident and the isolating recovery period made her desire "to begin again, painting things just as [she] saw them with [her] own eyes and nothing more." Most of
3380-642: A missionary and expert in Indian languages, ministered to European colonists and Native Americans in Wisconsin and Iowa for 34 years and, after his death, was declared Venerable by the Catholic Church. Father Charles Constantine Pise , a Jesuit, served as Chaplain of the Senate from 1832 to 1833, the only Catholic priest ever chosen to serve in this capacity. In 1833, Lorenzo Da Ponte , formerly Mozart's librettist and
3549-584: A much more politically active Modotti (she joined the Mexican Communist Party that year) found her focus shifting and more of her work becoming politically motivated. Around that time her photographs began appearing in publications such as Mexican Folkways , Forma , and the more radically motivated El Machete , the German Communist Party 's Arbeiter-Illustrierte-Zeitung (AIZ), and New Masses . From 1929 she contributed to Der Kuckuck ,
SECTION 20
#17328766323993718-715: A naturalized U.S. citizen, founded the first opera house in the United States, the Italian Opera House in New York City, which was the predecessor of the New York Academy of Music and of the New York Metropolitan Opera . Missionaries of the Jesuit and Franciscan orders were active in many parts of America. Italian Jesuits founded numerous missions, schools, and two colleges in the west. Giovanni Nobili founded
3887-537: A new sense of Mexican identity that took pride in the country's Indigenous heritage and sought to rid itself of the colonial mindset of Europe as superior to Mexico. Particularly influential to Kahlo at this time were nine of her schoolmates, with whom she formed an informal group called the "Cachuchas" – many of them would become leading figures of the Mexican intellectual elite. They were rebellious and against everything conservative and pulled pranks, staged plays, and debated philosophy and Russian classics. To mask
4056-566: A photographer and essayist. In 1922 she moved to Mexico , where she became an active member of the Mexican Communist Party . Modotti was born Assunta Adelaide Luigia Modotti Mondini in Udine , Friuli , Italy. Her mother, Assunta, was a seamstress; her father, Giuseppe, was a mason. After spending time living in Austria, where her parents were migrant workers, the family returned to Udine, where
4225-497: A portrait studio in Mexico City. Modotti and Weston quickly gravitated toward the capital's bohemian scene and used their connections to create an expanding portrait business. Together they found a community of cultural and political " avant-gardists ", which included Frida Kahlo , Lupe Marín , Diego Rivera , and Jean Charlot . In general, Weston was moved by the landscape and folk art of Mexico to create abstract works, while Modotti
4394-555: A promise of a job and a studio. Robo left for Mexico in December 1921. Perhaps unaware of his affair with Modotti, Robo took with him prints of Weston's, hoping to mount an exhibition of his and Weston's work in Mexico. While she was on her way to be with Robo, Modotti received word of his death from smallpox on February 9, 1922. Devastated, she arrived two days after his death. In March 1922, determined to see Robo's vision realized, she mounted
4563-486: A publication of the Austrian Social Democratic Party . Mexican photographer Manuel Álvarez Bravo divided Modotti's career as a photographer into two distinct categories: "Romantic" and "Revolutionary", with the former period including her time spent as Weston's darkroom assistant, office manager and, finally, creative partner. Her later works were the focus of her one-woman retrospective exhibition at
4732-478: A rumoured 400 executions. An autopsy showed that she died of natural causes, namely congestive heart failure . Her grave is located within the vast Panteón de Dolores in Mexico City. Poet Pablo Neruda composed Modotti's epitaph, part of which can also be found on her tombstone, which also includes a relief portrait of Modotti by engraver Leopoldo Méndez : In 1996 the Philadelphia Museum of Art organized
4901-541: A similar studio in San Francisco. While in Los Angeles, she met the photographer Edward Weston and his creative partner Margrethe Mather . It was through her relationship with Weston that Modotti developed as an important fine art photographer and documentarian. By 1921, Modotti was Weston's lover. Ricardo Gómez Robelo became the head of Mexico's Ministry of Education's Fine Arts Department, and persuaded Robo to come to Mexico with
5070-474: A small stream of new arrivals from Italy. Some brought skills in agriculture and the making of glass, silk and wine, while others brought skills as musicians. In 1773–1785, Filippo Mazzei , a physician, philosopher, diplomat, promoter of liberty, and author, was a close friend and confidant of Thomas Jefferson . He published a pamphlet containing the phrase, "All men are by nature equally free and independent," which Jefferson incorporated essentially intact into
5239-484: A strong sense of guilt, of a sense of living one's life at the expense of another who has died so one might live. Although Kahlo featured herself and events from her life in her paintings, they were often ambiguous in meaning. She did not use them only to show her subjective experience but to raise questions about Mexican society and the construction of identity within it, particularly gender, race, and social class. Historian Liza Bakewell has stated that Kahlo "recognized
Tina Modotti - Misplaced Pages Continue
5408-588: A student." She carried with her "100 dollars and a train ticket for San Francisco, where her father and her sister Mercedes resided." Attracted to the performing arts supported by the Italian émigré community in the San Francisco Bay Area , Modotti experimented with acting. She appeared in several plays, operas, and silent movies in the late 1910s and early 1920s, and also worked as an artist's model. In 1917, she met Roubaix "Robo" de l'Abrie Richey. Originally
5577-404: A subject who was female, Mexican, modern, and powerful", and who diverged from the usual dichotomy of roles of mother/whore allowed to women in Mexican society. Due to her gender and divergence from the muralist tradition, Kahlo's paintings were treated as less political and more naïve and subjective than those of her male counterparts up until the late 1980s. According to art historian Joan Borsa,
5746-687: A surrealist and describing her work as "a ribbon around a bomb". He not only promised to arrange for her paintings to be exhibited in Paris but also wrote to his friend and art dealer, Julien Levy , who invited her to hold her first solo exhibition at his gallery on the East 57th Street in Manhattan. In October, Kahlo traveled alone to New York, where her colorful Mexican dress "caused a sensation" and made her seen as "the height of exotica". The exhibition opening in November
5915-604: A two-week exhibition of Robo's and Weston's work at the National Academy of Fine Arts in Mexico City . She sustained a second loss with the death of her father, which forced her to return to San Francisco later in March 1922. In 1923, Modotti returned to Mexico City with Weston and his son Chandler, leaving behind Weston's wife Flora and their youngest three children. She agreed to run Weston's studio free of charge in return for his mentoring her in photography. Together they opened
6084-524: Is a tree trunk growing out of the ground, reflecting Kahlo's view of humanity's unity with the earth and her own sense of unity with Mexico. In Kahlo's paintings, trees serve as symbols of hope, of strength and of a continuity that transcends generations. Additionally, hair features as a symbol of growth and of the feminine in Kahlo's paintings and in Self-Portrait with Cropped Hair , Kahlo painted herself wearing
6253-568: Is credited with inventing the earliest version of an ice cream cone in 1898. Another Italian immigrant, Giuseppe Bellanca , brought with him in 1912 an advanced aircraft design, which he began producing. One of Bellanca's planes, piloted by Cesare Sabelli and George Pond, made one of the first nonstop trans-Atlantic flights in 1934. Several families, including the Grucci , Zambelli , and Vitale families, brought with them expertise in fireworks displays, and their preeminence in this field has continued to
6422-792: Is currently unknown; however, a 1671 Dutch record indicates that in 1656 alone the Duchy of Savoy near Turin , Italy, had exiled 300 Waldensians because of their Protestant faith. Enrico Tonti (Henri de Tonti), together with the French explorer René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle , explored the Great Lakes region. De Tonti founded the first European settlement in Illinois in 1679 and in Arkansas in 1683, known as Poste de Arkansea , making him "The Father of Arkansas." With LaSalle, he co-founded New Orleans and
6591-816: Is displayed in the United States Capitol Visitor Center . The Taliaferro family (originally Tagliaferro ), believed to have roots in Venice , was one of the First Families to settle Virginia . The Wythe House , a historic Georgian home built in Williamsburg, Virginia , in 1754, was designed by architect Richard Taliaferro for his son-in-law, American Founding Father George Wythe , who married Richard's daughter Elizabeth Taliaferro. The elder Taliaferro designed much of Colonial Williamsburg , including
6760-713: Is held in the following permanent collections: Modotti was portrayed by Ashley Judd in the 2002 film Frida , about fellow artist Frida Kahlo . 2018 announcement by AG Studios, England to make a TV mini-series titled Radical Eye: The Life and Times of Tina Modotti , creatively helmed by Paula Alvarez Vaccaro and starring Monica Bellucci . Italian Americans 5,953,262 (1.8%) Italian alone 2021 estimates, self-reported 17,285,619 (2015) 17,566,693 (2010) 17,829,184 (2006) 16,688,000 (2000) 14,664,550 (1990) 12,183,692 (1980) Italian Americans ( Italian : italoamericani ) are Americans who have full or partial Italian ancestry. According to
6929-428: Is more appropriate to consider her paintings as having more in common with magical realism , also known as New Objectivity . It combined reality and fantasy and employed similar style to Kahlo's, such as flattened perspective, clearly outlined characters and bright colours. Similarly to many other contemporary Mexican artists, Kahlo was heavily influenced by Mexicanidad , a romantic nationalism that had developed in
Tina Modotti - Misplaced Pages Continue
7098-415: Is seen as its uncompromising depiction of the female experience and form. Kahlo enjoyed art from an early age, receiving drawing instruction from printmaker Fernando Fernández (who was her father's friend) and filling notebooks with sketches. In 1925, she began to work outside of school to help her family. After briefly working as a stenographer , she became a paid engraving apprentice for Fernández. He
7267-638: The Bank of America . His bank also provided financing to the film industry developing on the West Coast at the time, including the financing for Walt Disney's Snow White , the first full-length animated motion picture to be made in the United States. Other companies founded by Italian Americans—such as Ghirardelli Chocolate Company , Progresso , Planters Peanuts , Contadina , Chef Boyardee , Italian Swiss Colony wines, and Jacuzzi —became nationally known brand names in time. An Italian immigrant, Italo Marciony (Marcioni),
7436-551: The Battle of the Little Bighorn . An immigrant, Antonio Meucci , brought with him a concept for the telephone. He is credited by many researchers with being the first to demonstrate the principle of the telephone in a patent caveat he submitted to the U.S. Patent Office in 1871; however, considerable controversy existed relative to the priority of invention, with Alexander Graham Bell also being accorded this distinction. (In 2002,
7605-807: The Declaration of Independence . Italian Americans served in the American Revolutionary War both as soldiers and officers. Francesco Vigo aided the colonial forces of George Rogers Clark by serving as one of the foremost financiers of the Revolution in the frontier Northwest. Later, he was a co-founder of Vincennes University in Indiana . After American independence, numerous political refugees arrived, most notably Giuseppe Avezzana , Alessandro Gavazzi , Silvio Pellico , Federico Confalonieri , and Eleuterio Felice Foresti . Giuseppe Garibaldi resided in
7774-464: The Frida Kahlo Museum . Although she was disabled by polio as a child, Kahlo had been a promising student headed for medical school until being injured in a bus accident at the age of 18, which caused her lifelong pain and medical problems. During her recovery, she returned to her childhood interest in art with the idea of becoming an artist. Kahlo's interests in politics and art led her to join
7943-800: The Governor's Palace , the Capitol of the Colony of Virginia , and the President's House at the College of William & Mary . Francesco Maria de Reggio, an Italian nobleman of the House of Este who served under the French as François Marie, Chevalier de Reggio , came to Louisiana in 1747 where King Louis XV appointed him Captain General of French Louisiana , until 1763. Scion of
8112-599: The Great Depression , Kahlo sold half of the 25 paintings presented in the exhibition. She also received commissions from A. Conger Goodyear , then the president of the MoMA, and Clare Boothe Luce, for whom she painted a portrait of Luce's friend, socialite Dorothy Hale , who had committed suicide by jumping from her apartment building. During the three months she spent in New York, Kahlo painted very little, instead focusing on enjoying
8281-752: The Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston , and, in the following year, she participated in two high-profile exhibitions in New York, the Twentieth-Century Portraits exhibition at the MoMA and the Surrealists' First Papers of Surrealism exhibition. In 1943, she was included in the Mexican Art Today exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and Women Artists at Peggy Guggenheim 's The Art of This Century gallery in New York. Kahlo gained more appreciation for her art in Mexico as well. She became
8450-609: The Mexican Communist Party (PCM) and was introduced to a circle of political activists and artists, including the exiled Cuban communist Julio Antonio Mella and the Italian-American photographer Tina Modotti . At one of Modotti's parties in June 1928, Kahlo was introduced to Diego Rivera . They had met briefly in 1922 when he was painting a mural at her school. Shortly after their introduction in 1928, Kahlo asked him to judge whether her paintings showed enough talent for her to pursue
8619-458: The Mexican Communist Party in 1927, through which she met fellow Mexican artist Diego Rivera . The couple married in 1929 and spent the late 1920s and early 1930s travelling in Mexico and the United States together. During this time, she developed her artistic style, drawing her main inspiration from Mexican folk culture , and painted mostly small self-portraits that mixed elements from pre-Columbian and Catholic beliefs. Her paintings raised
SECTION 50
#17328766323998788-632: The Mexican Revolution , as the overthrown government had commissioned works from him, and the long civil war limited the number of private clients. When Kahlo was six years old, she contracted polio , which eventually made her right leg grow shorter and thinner than the left. The illness forced her to be isolated from her peers for months, and she was bullied. While the experience made her reclusive, it made her Guillermo's favorite due to their shared experience of living with disability. Kahlo credited him for making her childhood "marvelous ... he
8957-694: The National Library in December 1929, which was advertised as "The First Revolutionary Photographic Exhibition In Mexico". Modotti began a relationship with Xavier Guerrero, who was a member of the Mexican Communist Party, in 1927. Guerrero was sent to Moscow for a year to take part in political party training, and by 1928 Modotti had met and begun a relationship with the exiled Cuban activist Julio Antonio Mella. During this same period, economic and political conflicts within Mexico and indeed much of Central and South America were intensifying and this included increased repression of political dissidents. In 1929, Mella
9126-578: The Secretariat of Public Education in Mexico City. Modotti's visual vocabulary matured during this period, such as her formal experiments with architectural interiors, blooming flowers, urban landscapes, and especially in her many beautiful images of peasants and workers during the depression. In 1926, Modotti and Weston were commissioned by Anita Brenner to travel around Mexico and take photographs for what would become her influential book Idols Behind Altars . The relative contributions of Modotti and Weston to
9295-639: The U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution on Meucci (H.R. 269) declaring that "his work in the invention of the telephone should be acknowledged.") During this period, Italian Americans established a number of institutions of higher learning. Las Vegas College (now Regis University ) was established by a group of exiled Italian Jesuits in 1877 in Las Vegas , New Mexico. The Jesuit Giuseppe Cataldo , founded Gonzaga College (now Gonzaga University ) in Spokane , Washington in 1887. In 1886, Rabbi Sabato Morais ,
9464-589: The Workers International Relief organizations as a Comintern agent in Europe. When the Spanish Civil War erupted in 1936, Vidali (then known as "Comandante Carlos") and Modotti (using the pseudonym "Maria") left Moscow for Spain, where they stayed and worked until 1939. She worked with Canadian Dr. Norman Bethune during the disastrous retreat from Málaga in 1937. In 1939, following the collapse of
9633-420: The femme fatale , Modotti's movie career culminated in the 1920 film The Tiger's Coat . She had minor parts in two other films. The couple entered into a bohemian circle of friends. One of these fellow bohemians was Ricardo Gómez Robelo. Another was the photographer, Edward Weston . As a young girl in Italy her uncle, Pietro Modotti, maintained a photography studio. Later in the U.S., her father briefly ran
9802-418: The 17th century. They were of French and northern Italian heritage (specifically Piedmontese ), The first Waldensians began arriving around 1640, with the majority coming between 1654 and 1663. They spread out across what was then called New Netherland and what would become New York , New Jersey , and the Lower Delaware River regions. The total American Waldensian population that immigrated to New Netherland
9971-445: The 1920s 455,315 immigrants arrived. They came under the terms of the new quota-based immigration restrictions created by the Immigration Act of 1924 . Italian-Americans had a significant influence on American society and culture, making contributions to visual arts, literature, cuisine, politics, sports, and music. Italians in the United States before 1880 included a number of explorers, starting with Christopher Columbus , and
10140-420: The 1920s, muralists dominated the Mexican art scene. They created large public pieces in the vein of Renaissance masters and Russian socialist realists : they usually depicted masses of people, and their political messages were easy to decipher. Although she was close to muralists such as Rivera, José Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siquieros and shared their commitment to socialism and Mexican nationalism,
10309-508: The 1920s. Many sought housing in the older sections of the large Northeastern cities—districts that became known as " Little Italys ." Such housing was frequently in overcrowded, substandard tenements, which were often dimly lit and had poor heating and ventilation. Tuberculosis and other communicable diseases were a constant health threat for the immigrant families that were compelled by economic circumstances to live in these dwellings. Other immigrant families lived in single-family abodes, which
SECTION 60
#173287663239910478-462: The 1940s, Kahlo participated in exhibitions in Mexico and the United States and worked as an art teacher. She taught at the Escuela Nacional de Pintura, Escultura y Grabado (" La Esmeralda ") and was a founding member of the Seminario de Cultura Mexicana . Kahlo's always-fragile health began to decline in the same decade. While she had had solo exhibitions elsewhere, she had her first solo exhibition in Mexico in 1953, shortly before her death in 1954 at
10647-599: The Americas. Another Italian, John Cabot ( Italian : Giovanni Caboto [dʒoˈvanni kaˈbɔːto] ), together with his son Sebastian , explored the eastern seaboard of North America for Henry VII in the early 16th century. In 1524, the Florentine explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano ( Italian: [dʒoˈvanni da (v)verratˈtsaːno] ) was the first European to explore the Atlantic coast of North America between Florida and New Brunswick in 1524. The Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci ( Italian: [ameˈriːɡo veˈsputtʃi] ) first demonstrated in about 1501 that
10816-428: The Capitol. The first Columbus Day celebration was organized by Italian Americans in New York City on October 12, 1866. Giovanni Martino or Giovanni Martini, also known as John Martin, was a soldier and trumpeter who served both in Italy with Giuseppe Garibaldi and in the United States Army , famously in the 7th Cavalry Regiment under George Armstrong Custer . He was the only survivor from Custer's company at
10985-414: The Elder , whose focus on peasant life was similar to her own interest in the Mexican people. Another influence was the poet Rosario Castellanos , whose poems often chronicle a woman's lot in the patriarchal Mexican society, a concern with the female body, and tell stories of immense physical and emotional pain. Kahlo's paintings often feature root imagery, with roots growing out of her body to tie her to
11154-486: The Galería Arte Contemporaneo in April 1953. Though Kahlo was initially not due to attend the opening, as her doctors had prescribed bed rest for her, she ordered her four-poster bed to be moved from her home to the gallery. To the surprise of the guests, she arrived in an ambulance and was carried on a stretcher to the bed, where she stayed for the duration of the party. The exhibition was a notable cultural event in Mexico and also received attention in mainstream press around
11323-488: The Italian American Studies Association, the current population is about 18 million, an increase from 16 million in 2010, corresponding to about 5.4% of the total population of the United States . The largest concentrations of Italian Americans are in the urban Northeast and industrial Midwestern metropolitan areas , with significant communities also residing in many other major U.S. metropolitan areas. Between 1820 and 2004, approximately 5.5 million Italians migrated to
11492-453: The Italians who entered the United States between 1899 and 1924 permanently returned home. Immigrants without industrial skills found employment in low-wage manual labor jobs. Instead of finding jobs on their own, most used the padrone system whereby Italian middlemen ( padroni ) found jobs for groups of men and controlled their wages, transportation, and living conditions for a fee. According to historian Alfred T. Banfield: In terms of
11661-424: The Mexican and Italian political police — was questioned about both crimes amidst a concerted anti-communist, anti-immigrant press campaign, that depicted "the fierce and bloody Tina Modotti" as the perpetrator (a Catholic zealot, Daniel Luis Flores, was later charged with shooting Ortiz Rubio. José Magriñat was arrested for Mella's murder). As a result of the anti-communist campaign by the Mexican government, Modotti
11830-426: The New World was not Asia as initially conjectured but a different continent ( America is named after him). A number of Italian navigators and explorers in the employ of Spain and France were involved in exploring and mapping their territories and in establishing settlements, but their work did not lead to the permanent presence of Italians in America. In 1539, Marco da Nizza explored the territory that later became
11999-421: The New York City area. He was again a member of the State Assembly (New York Co., 16th D.) in 1877 , 1881 , and 1883 . Between 5,000 and 10,000 Italian Americans fought in the American Civil War . The great majority of Italian Americans, for both demographic and ideological reasons, served in the Union Army (including generals Edward Ferrero and Francis B. Spinola ). Some Americans of Italian descent from
12168-592: The Republican movement in Spain, Modotti left Spain with Vidali and returned to Mexico under a pseudonym . In 1942, at the age of 45, Modotti died from heart failure while on her way home in a taxi from a dinner at Hannes Meyer 's home in Mexico City , under what are viewed by some as suspicious circumstances. After hearing about her death, Diego Rivera suggested that Vidali had orchestrated it. Modotti may have 'known too much' about Vidali's activities in Spain, which included
12337-693: The Santa Clara College (now Santa Clara University ) in 1851. The St. Ignatius Academy (now University of San Francisco ) was established by Anthony Maraschi in 1855. The Italian Jesuits also laid the foundation for the winemaking industry that would later flourish in California . In the east, the Italian Franciscans founded hospitals, orphanages, schools, and St. Bonaventure College (now St. Bonaventure University ), established by Pamfilo da Magliano in 1858. In 1837, John Phinizy (Finizzi) became
12506-492: The Surrealist movement, Kahlo brought postcolonial questions and themes to the forefront of her brand of Surrealism. Breton also described Kahlo's work as "wonderfully situated at the point of intersection between the political (philosophical) line and the artistic line". While she subsequently participated in Surrealist exhibitions, she stated that she "detest[ed] Surrealism", which to her was "bourgeois art" and not "true art that
12675-641: The U.S. from Tuscany . Beginning in 1863, Italian immigrants were one of the principal groups of unskilled laborers, along with the Irish, that built the Transcontinental Railroad west from Omaha , Nebraska. In 1866, Constantino Brumidi completed the frescoed interior of the United States Capitol dome in Washington, D.C. , and spent the rest of his life executing still other artworks to beautify
12844-708: The United States (1890–1900) posed a change in the labor market, prompting Fr. Michael J. Henry to write a letter in October 1900 to the Bishop John J. Clancy of Sligo , Ireland , warning The Brooklyn Eagle , in a 1900 article, addressed the same reality: In spite of the economic hardship of the immigrants, civil and social life flourished in the Italian American neighborhoods of the large northeastern cities. Italian theater, band concerts, choral recitals, puppet shows, mutual aid societies, and social clubs were available to
13013-562: The United States during the Italian diaspora , in several distinct waves, with the greatest number arriving in the 20th century from Southern Italy . Initially, most single men, so-called birds of passage, sent remittance back to their families in Italy and then returned to Italy. Immigration began to increase during the 1880s, when more than twice as many Italians immigrated than had in the five previous decades combined. Continuing from 1880 to 1914,
13182-509: The United States in 1850–51. At the invitation of Thomas Jefferson, Carlo Bellini became the first professor of modern languages at the College of William & Mary , in the years 1779–1803. In 1801, Philip Trajetta (Filippo Traetta) established the nation's first conservatory of music in Boston, where, in the first half of the century, organist Charles Nolcini and conductor Louis Ostinelli were also active. In 1805, Thomas Jefferson recruited
13351-544: The United States, partly due to the looming Second World War , and made a loss financially, which led Kahlo to cancel a planned exhibition in London. Regardless, the Louvre purchased The Frame , making her the first Mexican artist to be featured in their collection. She was also warmly received by other Parisian artists, such as Pablo Picasso and Joan Miró , as well as the fashion world, with designer Elsa Schiaparelli designing
13520-572: The West. In 1789–91, Alessandro Malaspina mapped much of the west coast of the Americas , from Cape Horn to the Gulf of Alaska . In 1822–23, the headwater region of the Mississippi was explored by Giacomo Beltrami in the territory that was later to become Minnesota , which named a county in his honor. Joseph Rosati was named the first Catholic bishop of St. Louis in 1824. In 1830–64, Samuel Mazzuchelli ,
13689-515: The accident had also displaced three vertebrae . As treatment she had to wear a plaster corset which confined her to bed rest for the better part of three months. The accident ended Kahlo's dreams of becoming a physician and caused her pain and illness for the rest of her life; her friend Andrés Henestrosa stated that Kahlo "lived dying". Kahlo's bed rest was over by late 1927, and she began socializing with her old schoolfriends, who were now at university and involved in student politics. She joined
13858-484: The aftermath of the revolution. The Mexicanidad movement claimed to resist the "mindset of cultural inferiority" created by colonialism, and placed special importance on Indigenous cultures. Before the revolution, Mexican folk culture – a mixture of Indigenous and European elements – was disparaged by the elite, who claimed to have purely European ancestry and regarded Europe as the definition of civilization which Mexico should imitate. Kahlo's artistic ambition
14027-536: The age of 47. Kahlo's work as an artist remained relatively unknown until the late 1970s, when her work was rediscovered by art historians and political activists. By the early 1990s, not only had she become a recognized figure in art history, but she was also regarded as an icon for Chicanos , the feminism movement, and the LGBTQ+ community. Kahlo's work has been celebrated internationally as emblematic of Mexican national and Indigenous traditions and by feminists for what
14196-411: The city to the extent that her fragile health allowed. She also had several affairs, continuing the one with Nickolas Muray and engaging in ones with Levy and Edgar Kaufmann, Jr. In January 1939, Kahlo sailed to Paris to follow up on André Breton's invitation to stage an exhibition of her work. When she arrived, she found that he had not cleared her paintings from the customs and no longer even owned
14365-528: The city was beneficial for her artistic expression. She experimented with different techniques, such as etching and frescos , and her paintings began to show a stronger narrative style. She also began placing emphasis on the themes of "terror, suffering, wounds, and pain". Despite the popularity of the mural in Mexican art at the time, she adopted a diametrically opposed medium, votive images or retablos , religious paintings made on small metal sheets by amateur artists to thank saints for their blessings during
14534-447: The classic bust-length portraits that were fashionable during the colonial era, but they subverted the format by depicting their subject as less attractive than in reality. She concentrated more frequently on this format towards the end of the 1930s, thus reflecting changes in Mexican society. Increasingly disillusioned by the legacy of the revolution and struggling to cope with the effects of the Great Depression , Mexicans were abandoning
14703-718: The commission in Cuernavaca in late 1930, he and Kahlo moved to San Francisco , where he painted murals for the Luncheon Club of the San Francisco Stock Exchange and the California School of Fine Arts . The couple was "feted, lionized, [and] spoiled" by influential collectors and clients during their stay in the city. Her long love affair with Hungarian-American photographer Nickolas Muray most likely began around this time. Kahlo and Rivera returned to Mexico for
14872-568: The conflicts brought on by revolutionary ideology": What was it to be a Mexican? – modern, yet pre-Columbian; young, yet old; anti-Catholic yet Catholic; Western, yet New World; developing, yet underdeveloped; independent, yet colonized; mestizo , yet not Spanish nor Indian. To explore these questions through her art, Kahlo developed a complex iconography, extensively employing pre-Columbian and Christian symbols and mythology in her paintings. In most of her self-portraits, she depicts her face as mask-like, but surrounded by visual cues which allow
15041-450: The country as a condition for payment of their passage. It was not uncommon, especially in the South, for the immigrants to be subjected to economic exploitation, hostility, and sometimes even violence. The Italian laborers who went to these areas were in many cases later joined by wives and children, which resulted in the establishment of permanent Italian American settlements in diverse parts of
15210-515: The country. A number of towns, such as Roseto, Pennsylvania , Tontitown, Arkansas , and Valdese, North Carolina , were founded by Italian immigrants during this era. A number of major business ventures were founded by Italian Americans. Amadeo Giannini originated the concept of branch banking to serve the Italian American community in San Francisco . He founded the Bank of Italy, which later became
15379-504: The country. Work on Union Station began in 1905 and was completed in 1908. The six statues that decorate the station's facade were carved by Andrew Bernasconi between 1909 and 1911. Two Italian American master stone carvers, Roger Morigi and Vincent Palumbo, spent decades creating the sculptural works that embellish Washington National Cathedral . Frida Kahlo Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderón ( Spanish pronunciation: [ˈfɾiða ˈkalo] ; 6 July 1907 – 13 July 1954 )
15548-490: The critical reception of her exploration of subjectivity and personal history has all too frequently denied or de-emphasized the politics involved in examining one's own location, inheritances and social conditions ... Critical responses continue to gloss over Kahlo's reworking of the personal, ignoring or minimizing her interrogation of sexuality, sexual difference, marginality, cultural identity, female subjectivity, politics and power. Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderón
15717-401: The de Reggios, a Louisiana Creole first family of St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana , Francesco Maria's granddaughter Hélène Judith de Reggio would give birth to famed Confederate General P. G. T. Beauregard . A colonial merchant, Francis Ferrari of Genoa, was naturalized as a citizen of Rhode Island in 1752. He died in 1753, and in his will speaks of Genoa , his ownership of three ships,
15886-465: The decade. Her financial situation improved when she received a 5000-peso national prize for her painting Moses (1945) in 1946 and when The Two Fridas was purchased by the Museo de Arte Moderno in 1947. According to art historian Andrea Kettenmann, by the mid-1940s, her paintings were "featured in the majority of group exhibitions in Mexico". Further, Martha Zamora wrote that she could "sell whatever she
16055-486: The depiction of goddesses and saints in Indigenous and Catholic cultures. Out of specific Mexican folk artists, Kahlo was especially influenced by Hermenegildo Bustos , whose works portrayed Mexican culture and peasant life, and José Guadalupe Posada , who depicted accidents and crime in satiric manner. She also derived inspiration from the works of Hieronymus Bosch , whom she called a "man of genius", and Pieter Bruegel
16224-689: The disbanded Army of the Two Sicilies , which was defeated by Giuseppe Garibaldi after the Expedition of the Thousand , fought in the Confederate Army. They included Confederate generals William B. Taliaferro (of English-American and Anglo-Italian descent) and P. G. T. Beauregard . Six Italian Americans received the Medal of Honor during the war, including Colonel Luigi Palma di Cesnola , who later became
16393-435: The ethos of socialism for individualism. This was reflected by the "personality cults", which developed around Mexican film stars such as Dolores del Río . According to Schaefer, Kahlo's "mask-like self-portraits echo the contemporaneous fascination with the cinematic close-up of feminine beauty, as well as the mystique of female otherness expressed in film noir ." By always repeating the same facial features, Kahlo drew from
16562-629: The exhibition Tina Modotti: Photographs of Mexican Murals was organized at the Richard Norton Gallery. The State Museum and Exhibition Center ROSPHOTO in Saint Petersburg, Russia, organized an exhibition of Modotti's work entitled "Tina Modotti. Art. Love. Revolution" from 20 September 2019 to 18 November 2019. In Italy, Palazzo Ducale in Genoa organized the exhibition "Donne, Messico e Libertà" from 8 April 2022 to 9 October 2022. Modotti's work
16731-420: The fact that she was older and to declare herself a "daughter of the revolution", she began saying that she had been born on 7 July 1910, the year the Mexican Revolution began, which she continued throughout her life. She fell in love with Alejandro Gomez Arias, the leader of the group and her first love. Her parents did not approve of the relationship. Arias and Kahlo were often separated from each other, due to
16900-508: The fascist police. She apparently intended to make her way into Italy to join the anti-fascist resistance there. In response to the deteriorating political situation in Germany and her own exhausted resources, however, she followed the advice of Vittorio Vidali and moved to Moscow in 1931. After 1931, Modotti no longer photographed. Reports of later photographs are unsubstantiated. During the next few years she engaged in various missions on behalf of
17069-690: The first director of the Metropolitan Museum of Arts in New York (1879–1904). The Garibaldi Guard recruited volunteers for the Union Army from Italy and other European countries to form the 39th New York Infantry . At the outbreak of the American Civil War, Giuseppe Garibaldi was a very popular figure. The 39th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment , with 350 Italian members, was nicknamed Garibaldi Guard in his honor. The unit wore red shirts and bersaglieri plumes . They carried with them both
17238-653: The first time in an exhibition, when Frieda and Diego Rivera was included in the Sixth Annual Exhibition of the San Francisco Society of Women Artists in the Palace of the Legion of Honor . On moving to Detroit with Rivera, Kahlo experienced numerous health problems related to a failed pregnancy. Despite these health problems, as well as her dislike for the capitalist culture of the United States, Kahlo's time in
17407-467: The folk art style she had adopted in Cuernavaca. In addition to painting portraits of several new acquaintances, she made Frieda and Diego Rivera (1931), a double portrait based on their wedding photograph, and The Portrait of Luther Burbank (1931), which depicted the eponymous horticulturist as a hybrid between a human and a plant. Although she still publicly presented herself as simply Rivera's spouse rather than as an artist, she participated for
17576-539: The following year, due to health complications. In 1937 and 1938, however, Kahlo's artistic career was extremely productive, following her divorce and then reconciliation with Rivera. She painted more "than she had done in all her eight previous years of marriage", creating such works as My Nurse and I (1937), Memory, the Heart (1937), Four Inhabitants of Mexico (1938), and What the Water Gave Me (1938). Although she
17745-603: The garment industry or in their homes. Many established small businesses in the Little Italys to satisfy the day-to-day needs of fellow immigrants. A New York Times article from 1895 provides a glimpse into the status of Italian immigration at the turn of the century: The New York Times in May 1896 sent its reporters to characterize the Little Italy/Mulberry neighborhood: The masses of Italian immigrants that entered
17914-458: The greatest surge of immigration brought more than 4 million Italians to the United States. The largest number of this wave came from Southern Italy, which at that time was largely agricultural and where much of the populace had been impoverished by centuries of foreign rule and heavy tax burdens. This period of large-scale immigration ended abruptly with the onset of World War I in August 1914. In
18083-456: The ground. This reflects in a positive sense the theme of personal growth; in a negative sense of being trapped in a particular place, time and situation; and in an ambiguous sense of how memories of the past influence the present for good and/or ill. In My Grandparents and I , Kahlo painted herself as a ten-year old, holding a ribbon that grows from an ancient tree that bears the portraits of her grandparents and other ancestors while her left foot
18252-477: The hard situations, the suffering, misfortune or judgement, as being calamitous, wretched or being " de la chingada ". For example, when she painted herself following her miscarriage in Detroit in Henry Ford Hospital (1932), she shows herself as weeping, with dishevelled hair and an exposed heart, which are all considered part of the appearance of La Llorona, a woman who murdered her children. The painting
18421-494: The immigrants a sense of unity and common identity. The destinations of many of the Italian immigrants were not only the large cities of the East Coast , but also more remote regions of the country, such as Florida and California. They were drawn there by opportunities in agriculture, fishing, mining, railroad construction, lumbering, and other activities under way at the time. Often the immigrants contracted to work in these areas of
18590-502: The immigrants. An important event, the festa , became for many an important connection to the traditions of their ancestral villages in Italy. The festa involved an elaborate procession through the streets in honor of a patron saint or the Virgin Mary in which a large statue was carried by a team of men, with musicians marching behind. Followed by food, fireworks, and general merriment, the festa became an important occasion that helped give
18759-476: The interest of surrealist artist André Breton , who arranged for Kahlo's first solo exhibition at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York in 1938; the exhibition was a success and was followed by another in Paris in 1939. While the French exhibition was less successful, the Louvre purchased a painting from Kahlo, The Frame , making her the first Mexican artist to be featured in their collection. Throughout
18928-461: The large exodus included political and social unrest, the weak agricultural economy of the South modeled on the outdated latifundist system dating back to the feudal period, a high tax burden, soil exhaustion and erosion, and military conscription lasting seven years. The poor economic situation in the 19th century became untenable for many sharecroppers, tenant farmers, and small business and land owners. Multitudes chose to emigrate rather than face
19097-440: The little positive my health allows me to do also benefits the Revolution, the only real reason to live." She also altered her painting style: her brushstrokes, previously delicate and careful, were now hastier, her use of color more brash, and the overall style more intense and feverish. Photographer Lola Alvarez Bravo understood that Kahlo did not have much longer to live, and thus staged her first solo exhibition in Mexico at
19266-474: The local kindergarten and primary school in Coyoacán and was homeschooled for the fifth and sixth grades. While Cristina followed their sisters into a convent school, Kahlo was enrolled in a German school due to their father's wishes. She was soon expelled for disobedience and was sent to a vocational teachers school. Her stay at the school was brief, as she was sexually abused by a female teacher. In 1922, Kahlo
19435-449: The majority of Kahlo's paintings were self-portraits of relatively small size. Particularly in the 1930s, her style was especially indebted to votive paintings or retablos , which were postcard-sized religious images made by amateur artists. Their purpose was to thank saints for their protection during a calamity, and they normally depicted an event, such as an illness or an accident, from which its commissioner had been saved. The focus
19604-429: The mayor of Augusta , Georgia. Samuel Wilds Trotti of South Carolina was the first Italian American to serve in the U.S. Congress (a partial term, from December 17, 1842, to March 3, 1843). In 1849, Francesco de Casale began publishing the Italian American newspaper L'Eco d'Italia in New York, the first of many to eventually follow. In 1848, Francis Ramacciotti , piano string inventor and manufacturer, immigrated to
19773-616: The mayor of Texarkana , Texas in 1880. Francis B. Spinola , the first Italian American to be elected to the United States House of Representatives , served as a representative from New York from 1887 to 1891. He also served as a general in the Union Army during the American Civil War . Following the war, Spinola was a banker and insurance agent and became an influential figure among the rapidly growing Italian immigrant community in
19942-427: The mid-1920s, show influence from Renaissance masters and European avant-garde artists such as Amedeo Modigliani . Towards the end of the decade, Kahlo derived more inspiration from Mexican folk art, drawn to its elements of "fantasy, naivety, and fascination with violence and death". The style she developed mixed reality with surrealistic elements and often depicted pain and death. One of Kahlo's earliest champions
20111-504: The outbreak of World War I in 1914. The Italian male immigrants in the Little Italys were most often employed in manual labor and were heavily involved in public works , such as the construction of roads, railroad tracks, sewers, subways, bridges, and the first skyscrapers in the northeastern cities. As early as 1890, it was estimated that around 90 percent of New York City's and 99 percent of Chicago's public works employees were Italians. The women most frequently worked as seamstresses in
20280-433: The paintings Kahlo made during this time were portraits of herself, her sisters, and her schoolfriends. Her early paintings and correspondence show that she drew inspiration especially from European artists, in particular Renaissance masters such as Sandro Botticelli and Bronzino and from avant-garde movements such as Neue Sachlichkeit and Cubism . On moving to Morelos in 1929 with her husband Diego Rivera , Kahlo
20449-404: The people hope from the artist". Some art historians have disagreed whether her work should be classified as belonging to the movement at all. According to Andrea Kettenmann, Kahlo was a symbolist concerned more in portraying her inner experiences. Emma Dexter has argued that, as Kahlo derived her mix of fantasy and reality mainly from Aztec mythology and Mexican culture instead of Surrealism, it
20618-417: The people of Mexico, and her profound interest in its culture remained important facets of her art throughout the rest of her life. When Kahlo and Rivera moved to San Francisco in 1930, Kahlo was introduced to American artists such as Edward Weston , Ralph Stackpole , Timothy L. Pflueger , and Nickolas Muray . The six months spent in San Francisco were a productive period for Kahlo, who further developed
20787-403: The picture reflects Kahlo's frustration not only with Rivera, but also her unease with the patriarchal values of Mexico as the scissors symbolize a malevolent sense of masculinity that threatens to "cut up" women, both metaphorically and literally. In Mexico, the traditional Spanish values of machismo were widely embraced, but Kahlo was always uncomfortable with machismo . As she suffered for
20956-456: The political instability and violence of the period, so they exchanged passionate love letters. On 17 September 1925, Kahlo and her boyfriend, Arias, were on their way home from school. They boarded one bus, but they got off the bus to look for an umbrella that Kahlo had left behind. They then boarded a second bus, which was crowded, and they sat in the back. The driver attempted to pass an oncoming electric streetcar . The streetcar crashed into
21125-486: The post-revolutionary Mexicayotl movement, which sought to define a Mexican identity, Kahlo has been described as a surrealist or magical realist . She is also known for painting about her experience of chronic pain . Born to a German father and a mestiza mother (of Purépecha descent), Kahlo spent most of her childhood and adult life at La Casa Azul, her family home in Coyoacán – now publicly accessible as
21294-468: The present day. Following in the footsteps of Constantino Brumidi , others were commissioned to help create Washington's impressive monuments. An Italian immigrant, Attilio Piccirilli , and his five brothers carved the Lincoln Memorial , which they began in 1911 and completed in 1922. Italian construction workers helped build Washington's Union Station, considered one of the most beautiful stations in
21463-580: The presentation of her work in the U.S., Modotti's photographs have been shown in Italy, Poland, Germany, Austria, and other countries. In 2010, the largest exhibition of her work, Tina Modotti Photographer and Revolutionary opened at the KunstHausWien in Vienna, Austria. It presented 250 photographs, many never shown before. The exhibition is based on the collections of Galerie Bilderwelt, Berlin and Spencer Throckmorton, NYC and curated by Reinhard Schultz. In 2015
21632-562: The project has been debated. Weston's son Brett, who accompanied the two on the project, indicated that the photographs were taken by Edward Weston. In 1925, Modotti joined International Red Aid , a Communist organization. In November 1926, Weston left Mexico and returned to California. During this time Modotti met several political radicals and Communists, including three Mexican Communist Party leaders who would all eventually become romantically linked with her: Xavier Guerrero , Julio Antonio Mella , and Vittorio Vidali . Starting in 1927,
21801-464: The prospect of a deepening poverty. A large number of these were attracted to the United States, which at the time was actively recruiting workers from Italy and elsewhere to fill the labor shortage that existed in the years following the Civil War. Often the father and older sons would go first, leaving the mother and the rest of the family behind until the male members could afford their passage. By far
21970-528: The push-pull model of immigration, America provided the pull factor by the prospect of jobs that unskilled and uneducated Italian peasant farmers could do. Peasant farmers accustomed to hard work in the Mezzogiorno, for example, took jobs building railroads and constructing buildings, while others took factory jobs that required little or no skill. The push factor came primarily from the harsh economic conditions in southern Italy. Major factors that contributed to
22139-405: The rail, her spine was broken in three places, her right leg was broken in eleven places, her right foot was crushed and dislocated, her collarbone was broken, and her shoulder was dislocated. She spent a month in hospital and two months recovering at home before being able to return to work. As she continued to experience fatigue and back pain, her doctors ordered X-rays, which revealed that
22308-497: The rest of her life from the bus accident in her youth, Kahlo spent much of her life in hospitals and undergoing surgery, much of it performed by quacks who Kahlo believed could restore her back to where she had been before the accident. Many of Kahlo's paintings are concerned with medical imagery, which is presented in terms of pain and hurt, featuring Kahlo bleeding and displaying her open wounds. Many of Kahlo's medical paintings, especially dealing with childbirth and miscarriage, have
22477-619: The same time, she resigned her membership of the PCM in support of Rivera, who had been expelled shortly before the marriage for his support of the leftist opposition movement within the Third International . During the civil war Morelos had seen some of the heaviest fighting, and life in the Spanish-style city of Cuernavaca sharpened Kahlo's sense of a Mexican identity and history. Similar to many other Mexican women artists and intellectuals at
22646-509: The scene of one of the largest voluntary emigrations in recorded world history. During this period of mass migration, 4 million Italians arrived in the United States, 3 million of them between 1900 and 1914. They came for the most part from southern Italy (the regions of Abruzzo , Campania , Apulia , Basilicata , and Calabria ) and from the island of Sicily . Most planned to stay a few years, then take their earnings and return home. According to historian Thomas J. Archdeacon , 46 percent of
22815-482: The side of the wooden bus, dragging it a few feet. Several passengers were killed in the accident. While Arias suffered minor injuries, Frida was impaled with an iron handrail that went through her pelvis. She later described the injury as "the way a sword pierces a bull". The handrail was removed by Arias and others, which was incredibly painful for Kahlo. Kahlo suffered many injuries: her pelvic bone had been fractured, her abdomen and uterus had been punctured by
22984-485: The states of Arizona and New Mexico . The first Italian to be registered as residing in the area corresponding to the current United States was Pietro Cesare Alberti , commonly regarded as the first Italian American. Alberti was a Venetian seaman who, in 1635, settled in the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam , which would eventually become New York City . A small wave of Protestants, known as Waldensians , immigrated during
23153-437: The street. When her health problems made it difficult for her to commute to the school in Mexico City, she began to hold her lessons at La Casa Azul. Four of her students – Fanny Rabel , Arturo García Bustos , Guillermo Monroy, and Arturo Estrada – became devotees, and were referred to as "Los Fridos" for their enthusiasm. Kahlo secured three mural commissions for herself and her students. Kahlo struggled to make
23322-465: The strongest "pull" factor was money. Migrants expected to make large sums in a few years of work, enabling them to live much better when they returned home, especially by buying a farm. Real life was never so golden: the Italians earned well below average rates. Their weekly earnings in manufacturing and mining in 1909 came to $ 9.61, compared to $ 13.63 for German immigrants and $ 11.06 for Poles. The result
23491-585: The summer of 1931, and in the fall traveled to New York City for the opening of Rivera's retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). In April 1932, they headed to Detroit , where Rivera had been commissioned to paint murals for the Detroit Institute of Arts . By this time, Kahlo had become bolder in her interactions with the press, impressing journalists with her fluency in English and stating on her arrival to
23660-612: The time, Kahlo began wearing traditional Indigenous Mexican peasant clothing to emphasize her mestiza ancestry: long and colorful skirts, huipils and rebozos , elaborate headdresses and masses of jewelry. She especially favored the dress of women from the allegedly matriarchal society of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec , who had come to represent "an authentic and indigenous Mexican cultural heritage" in post-revolutionary Mexico. The Tehuana outfit allowed Kahlo to express her feminist and anti-colonialist ideals. After Rivera had completed
23829-652: The viewer to decipher deeper meanings for it. Aztec mythology features heavily in Kahlo's paintings in symbols including monkeys, skeletons, skulls, blood, and hearts; often, these symbols referred to the myths of Coatlicue , Quetzalcoatl , and Xolotl . Other central elements that Kahlo derived from Aztec mythology were hybridity and dualism. Many of her paintings depict opposites: life and death, pre-modernity and modernity, Mexican and European, male and female. In addition to Aztec legends, Kahlo frequently depicted two central female figures from Mexican folklore in her paintings: La Llorona and La Malinche as interlinked to
23998-509: The voyeur, "making it virtually impossible for a viewer not to assume a consciously held position in response". According to Nancy Cooey, Kahlo made herself through her paintings into "the main character of her own mythology, as a woman, as a Mexican, and as a suffering person ... She knew how to convert each into a symbol or sign capable of expressing the enormous spiritual resistance of humanity and its splendid sexuality". Similarly, Nancy Deffebach has stated that Kahlo "created herself as
24167-724: The world. The same year, the Tate Gallery 's exhibition on Mexican art in London featured five of her paintings. In 1954, Kahlo was again hospitalized in April and May. That spring, she resumed painting after a one-year interval. Her last paintings include the political Marxism Will Give Health to the Sick (c. 1954) and Frida and Stalin (c. 1954) and the still-life Viva La Vida (1954). Estimates vary on how many paintings Kahlo made during her life, with figures ranging from fewer than 150 to around 200. Her earliest paintings, which she made in
24336-517: The young Modotti worked in a textile factory. In 1913, at the age of 16, she emigrated to the United States to join her father in San Francisco, California. Departing from Genoa aboard the SS Moltke on June 24, she traveled alone, according to Letizia Argenteri, author of Tina Modotti: Between Art and Revolution , arriving on July 8 at Ellis Island , where she "declared herself to be single, five feet one inch tall, in good mental and physical health, and
24505-574: Was Jewish and her paternal grandparents were Jews from the city of Arad , this claim was challenged in 2006 by a pair of German genealogists who found he was instead a Lutheran . Matilde was born in Oaxaca to an Indigenous father and a mother of Spanish descent. In addition to Kahlo, the marriage produced daughters Matilde ( c. 1898–1951), Adriana ( c. 1902–1968), and Cristina ( c. 1908–1964). She had two half-sisters from Guillermo's first marriage, María Luisa and Margarita, but they were raised in
24674-414: Was Surrealist artist André Breton, who claimed her as part of the movement as an artist who had supposedly developed her style "in total ignorance of the ideas that motivated the activities of my friends and myself". This was echoed by Bertram D. Wolfe , who wrote that Kahlo's was a "sort of 'naïve' Surrealism, which she invented for herself". Although Breton regarded her as mostly a feminine force within
24843-427: Was a Mexican painter known for her many portraits, self-portraits , and works inspired by the nature and artifacts of Mexico. Inspired by the country's popular culture , she employed a naïve folk art style to explore questions of identity, postcolonialism , gender, class, and race in Mexican society. Her paintings often had strong autobiographical elements and mixed realism with fantasy. In addition to belonging to
25012-453: Was a sense of alienation from most of American culture and a lack of interest in learning English or otherwise assimilating. Not many women came, but those who did became devoted to traditional Italian religious customs. When the World War I broke out, European migrants could not go home. Wages shot up, and the Italians benefited greatly. Most decided to stay permanently, and they flourished in
25181-451: Was accepted to the elite National Preparatory School , where she focused on natural sciences with the aim of becoming a physician. The institution had only recently begun admitting women, with only 35 girls out of 2,000 students. She performed well academically, was a voracious reader, and became "deeply immersed and seriously committed to Mexican culture, political activism and issues of social justice". The school promoted indigenismo ,
25350-542: Was an immense example to me of tenderness, of work (photographer and also painter), and above all in understanding for all my problems." He taught her about literature, nature, and philosophy, and encouraged her to play sports to regain her strength, despite the fact that most physical exercise was seen as unsuitable for girls. He also taught her photography, and she began to help him retouch, develop, and color photographs. Due to polio, Kahlo began school later than her peers. Along with her younger sister Cristina, she attended
25519-484: Was assassinated while walking in the street with Modotti from the offices of Red Aid, a Comintern-attached organization that offered relief to and defended victims of political repression. Modotti was immediately arrested, but later released and cleared of his murder. Shortly thereafter, an attempt was made on the life of the Mexican President Pascual Ortiz Rubio . Modotti – who was a target of both
25688-420: Was attended by famous figures such as Georgia O'Keeffe and Clare Boothe Luce and received much positive attention in the press, although many critics adopted a condescending tone in their reviews. For example, Time wrote that "Little Frida's pictures ... had the daintiness of miniatures, the vivid reds, and yellows of Mexican tradition and the playfully bloody fancy of an unsentimental child". Despite
25857-639: Was born on 6 July 1907 in Coyoacán , a village on the outskirts of Mexico City . Kahlo stated that she was born at the family home, La Casa Azul (The Blue House), but according to the official birth registry, the birth took place at the nearby home of her maternal grandmother. Kahlo's parents were photographer Guillermo Kahlo (1871–1941) and Matilde Calderón y González (1876–1932), and they were thirty-six and thirty, respectively, when they had her. Originally from Germany , Guillermo had immigrated to Mexico in 1891, after epilepsy caused by an accident ended his university studies. Although Kahlo said her father
26026-475: Was credited with the instrumental organization the band still maintains. Joseph Lucchesi, the third Italian leader of the U.S. Marine Band, served from 1844 to 1846. The first opera house in the country opened in 1833 in New York through the efforts of Lorenzo Da Ponte , Mozart's former librettist, who had immigrated to America and had become the first professor of Italian at Columbia College in 1825. During this period, Italian explorers continued to be active in
26195-451: Was currently painting; sometimes incomplete pictures were purchased right off the easel". Even as Kahlo was gaining recognition in Mexico, her health was declining rapidly, and an attempted surgery to support her spine failed. Her paintings from this period include Broken Column (1944), Without Hope (1945), Tree of Hope, Stand Fast (1946), and The Wounded Deer (1946), reflecting her poor physical state. During her last years, Kahlo
26364-582: Was exiled from Mexico in 1930. She first spent several months in Berlin , followed by several years in Moscow. Traveling on a restricted visa that mandated her final destination as Italy, Modotti initially stopped in Berlin and from there visited Switzerland. The Italian government made concerted efforts to extradite her as a subversive national, but with the assistance of International Red Aid activists, she evaded detention by
26533-579: Was governor of the Louisiana Territory for the next 20 years. His brother Alphonse de Tonty (Alfonso de Tonti), with French explorer Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac , was the co-founder of Detroit in 1701, and was its acting colonial governor for 12 years. Spain and France were Catholic countries and sent many missionaries to convert the native American population. Included among these missionaries were numerous Italians. In 1519–25, Alessandro Geraldini
26702-510: Was impressed by her talent, although she did not consider art as a career at this time. A severe bus accident at the age of 18 left Kahlo in lifelong pain. Confined to bed for three months following the accident, Kahlo began to paint. She started to consider a career as a medical illustrator , as well, which would combine her interests in science and art. Her mother provided her with a specially-made easel , which enabled her to paint in bed, and her father lent her some of his oil paints. She had
26871-507: Was inspired by the city of Cuernavaca where they lived. She changed her artistic style and increasingly drew inspiration from Mexican folk art. Art historian Andrea Kettenmann states that she may have been influenced by Adolfo Best Maugard 's treatise on the subject, for she incorporated many of the characteristics that he outlined – for example, the lack of perspective and the combining of elements from pre-Columbian and colonial periods of Mexican art. Her identification with La Raza ,
27040-562: Was invited to participate in "Salon de la Flor", an exhibition presented at the annual flower exposition. An article by Rivera on Kahlo's art was also published in the journal published by the Seminario de Cultura Mexicana. In 1943, Kahlo accepted a teaching position at the recently reformed, nationalistic Escuela Nacional de Pintura, Escultura y Grabado "La Esmeralda" . She encouraged her students to treat her in an informal and non-hierarchical way and taught them to appreciate Mexican popular culture and folk art and to derive their subjects from
27209-447: Was more captivated by the people of Mexico and blended this human interest with a modernist aesthetic, all the while shunning the term 'artist', insisting she merely wanted to "capture social realities". Modotti also became the photographer of choice for the blossoming Mexican mural movement , documenting the works of José Clemente Orozco and Diego Rivera . Between 1924 and 1928, Modotti took hundreds of photographs of Rivera's murals at
27378-561: Was more typical in areas outside of the enclaves of the large northeastern cities and other parts of the country as well. An estimated 49 percent of Italians who migrated to the Americas between 1905 (when return migration statistics began) and 1920 did not remain in the United States. These so-called birds of passage intended to stay in the United States for only a limited time, followed by a return to Italy with enough in savings to reestablish themselves there. While many did return to Italy, others chose to stay or were prevented from returning by
27547-548: Was mostly confined to the Casa Azul. She painted mostly still lifes , portraying fruit and flowers with political symbols such as flags or doves. She was concerned about being able to portray her political convictions, stating that "I have a great restlessness about my paintings. Mainly because I want to make it useful to the revolutionary communist movement... until now I have managed simply an honest expression of my own self ... I must struggle with all my strength to ensure that
27716-478: Was on the figures depicted, and they seldom featured a realistic perspective or detailed background, thus distilling the event to its essentials. Kahlo had an extensive collection of approximately 2,000 retablos , which she displayed on the walls of La Casa Azul. According to Laura Mulvey and Peter Wollen, the retablo format enabled Kahlo to "develop the limits of the purely iconic and allowed her to use narrative and allegory". Many of Kahlo's self-portraits mimic
27885-408: Was reported by the Mexican and international press, and the marriage was subject to constant media attention in Mexico in the following years, with articles referring to the couple as simply "Diego and Frida". Soon after the marriage, in late 1929, Kahlo and Rivera moved to Cuernavaca in the rural state of Morelos , where he had been commissioned to paint murals for the Palace of Cortés . Around
28054-508: Was still unsure about her work, the National Autonomous University of Mexico exhibited some of her paintings in early 1938. She made her first significant sale in the summer of 1938 when film star and art collector Edward G. Robinson purchased four paintings at $ 200 each. Even greater recognition followed when French Surrealist André Breton visited Rivera in April 1938. He was impressed by Kahlo, immediately claiming her as
28223-455: Was the first Catholic bishop in the Americas, at Santo Domingo . Father François-Joseph Bressani (Francesco Giuseppe Bressani) labored among the Algonquin and Huron peoples in the early 17th century. The southwest and California were explored and mapped by Italian Jesuit priest Eusebio Kino (Chino) in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. His statue , commissioned by the state of Arizona,
28392-457: Was to paint for the Mexican people, and she stated that she wished "to be worthy, with my paintings, of the people to whom I belong and to the ideas which strengthen me". To enforce this image, she preferred to conceal the education she had received in art from her father and Ferdinand Fernandez and at the preparatory school. Instead, she cultivated an image of herself as a "self-taught and naive artist". When Kahlo began her career as an artist in
28561-505: Was traditionally interpreted as simply a depiction of Kahlo's grief and pain over her failed pregnancies. But with the interpretation of the symbols in the painting and the information of Kahlo's actual views towards motherhood from her correspondence, the painting has been seen as depicting the unconventional and taboo choice of a woman remaining childless in Mexican society. Kahlo often featured her own body in her paintings, presenting it in varying states and disguises: as wounded, broken, as
#398601