Los Agachados
Beloved by the Surrealists, Alvarez Bravo was a master at making the ordinary extraordinary. Here, in Los Agachados, he portrays a group of laborers eating lunch at a Mexico City diner. Through his framing, the artist creates an abundance of visual planes—the dramatic rectilinear shadow, the partially rolled-up metal curtain, the cement walls, the tiled floor—to evoke a sense of incarceration. Yet the midday light also imbues the faceless figures with a sense of dignity and tranquility that challenges their captive state.
Artwork Details
- Title: Los Agachados
- Artist: Manuel Alvarez Bravo (Mexican, Mexico City 1902–2002 Mexico City)
- Date: 1934, printed ca. 1975
- Medium: Gelatin silver print
- Dimensions: 17.7 x 23.4 cm (7 x 9 3/16 in.)
- Classification: Photographs
- Credit Line: Ford Motor Company Collection, Gift of Ford Motor Company and John C. Waddell, 1987
- Object Number: 1987.1100.389
- Rights and Reproduction: © 2025 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris
- Curatorial Department: Photographs
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