Colette Álvarez Urbajtel
Estacada, 1990
Silver print
10 x 8 inches
With Urbajtel's signature and date verso.
With Urbajtel's signature and date verso.
Colette Álvarez Urbajtel was a French-Mexican photographer known for her black and white photographs of the everyday. Married to the famed Manual Álvarez Bravo, her personal career, so closely concatenated...
Colette Álvarez Urbajtel was a French-Mexican photographer known for her black and white photographs of the everyday. Married to the famed Manual Álvarez Bravo, her personal career, so closely concatenated with her husbands, often gets eclipsed by his success. However, Álvarez Urbajtel’s work has been recognized in with a longlist of exhibitions, two retrospectives, publications, and her work is contained in the collections of major institutions such as National Library of Paris, The Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the Museum of Modern Art in Mexico City.
While Álvarez Bravo’s work was tinged with spiritualism, Álvarez Urbajtel focused on natural composition and scenes of mundane life. Her photography had more optimistic vision, cutting parts of the image that did not align amicably. She worked in black and white for most of her career until 1990 when she began photographing in color.
Born in Paris in 1934, Urbajtel studied law in France before arriving in Mexico as an exchange student in 1959. While studying, her interest in photography grew. She married Manuel Álvarez Bravo and thrived under the tutelage of her husband and mentor. Urbajtel was Bravo’s longtime assistant and confidante during the height of his career until his death – all the while maintaining her own career in photography.
While Álvarez Bravo’s work was tinged with spiritualism, Álvarez Urbajtel focused on natural composition and scenes of mundane life. Her photography had more optimistic vision, cutting parts of the image that did not align amicably. She worked in black and white for most of her career until 1990 when she began photographing in color.
Born in Paris in 1934, Urbajtel studied law in France before arriving in Mexico as an exchange student in 1959. While studying, her interest in photography grew. She married Manuel Álvarez Bravo and thrived under the tutelage of her husband and mentor. Urbajtel was Bravo’s longtime assistant and confidante during the height of his career until his death – all the while maintaining her own career in photography.