"...Un Pez que Llaman Sierra" ("...A Fish Called Saw")

1942

Manuel Álvarez Bravo

Artist, Mexican, 1902 - 2002

A dark-skinned girl stands on a dock holding a fish wider than her hips down in front of her with both hands, one ankle crossed over the other in this black and white photograph. Her body faces us, but she looks up and off to our right. A dark cloth covers her hair and shoulders over a knee-length dress. She wears loafer-style shoes. She stands in front of an upturned rowboat with a severed swordfish head laid on the flat stern, to our right. The long sword-like upper lip angles into the lower right corner of the photograph, and the fish’s large eye is a gaping hole. Buildings on a spit of land that comes about halfway up the composition enclose the body of water in the distance. The contrast of the girl’s dark head covering against the white sky creates an optical effect, making the cloth seem to glow.
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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    gelatin silver print

  • Credit Line

    Gift of the UBS Art Collection

  • Dimensions

    image: 23.9 × 19 cm (9 7/16 × 7 1/2 in.)
    sheet: 25.2 × 20.3 cm (9 15/16 × 8 in.)

  • Accession

    2023.30.6


Artwork history & notes

Provenance

(The Witkin Gallery, New York); Paine Webber & Co., New York, 29 September 1992; UBS, New York, 2000; gift to NGA, 2023.

Associated Names

Inscriptions

on verso, signed by artist, lower right in graphite: M Alvarez Bravo / Mexico; bottom right circled: 10


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