# Manuel Alvarez Bravo artist context and auction value notes Canonical page: https://appraisily.com/artist/manuel-alvarez-bravo/ Profile generated: 2026-08-19T08:12:49.547Z Quality: high confidence, strong sources ## Artist identity - Nationality: Mexican - Movements: Mexican avant-garde, Mexican muralism context, Surrealism-related interpretation - Common media: Photography, Photographic prints ## Portrait ![Manuel Alvarez Bravo](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/76/Alvarez_Bravo%2C_RIT_NandE_Vol17Num16_1986_Apr24_Complete_%28cropped%29.jpg) Rochester Institute of Technology ยท Public domain Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Alvarez_Bravo,_RIT_NandE_Vol17Num16_1986_Apr24_Complete_(cropped).jpg ## About Manuel Alvarez Bravo Manuel Alvarez Bravo (1902-2002) was a Mexican photographer whose poetic, observant images helped establish photography as a major modern art form in Mexico and Latin America. Largely self-taught in photography, he developed his practice amid Mexico City's dynamic post-Revolutionary cultural scene, engaging with local artists and international photographers including Tina Modotti, Edward Weston, Paul Strand, and Henri Cartier-Bresson. His photographs often transform ordinary streets, rural settings, people, and objects through unusual framing, visual ambiguity, and quiet irony. Although Surrealist ideas became an important lens for interpreting his work, Alvarez Bravo did not identify himself as a Surrealist. Collectors and institutions encounter his work primarily as photographic prints associated with the history of Mexican modernism, the avant-garde, and twentieth-century documentary and poetic photography. His long career and strong museum presence make accurate identification, print history, provenance, and edition details especially important when comparing works. ## Common works and media Auction and appraisal contexts most commonly involve photographic prints, particularly works associated with Alvarez Bravo's observations of Mexican daily life, streets, countryside, people, and culturally specific settings. Records may vary by process, print date, size, edition, signature, and whether the work is a vintage or later print. Appraisily's indexed categories also include works on paper and prints, editions, and occasional broader fine-art or mixed-media classifications. These labels should be checked against the actual object, supporting documentation, and catalogue or auction-house description before treating a record as a close comparable. ## Market and appraisal context Appraisal of Manuel Alvarez Bravo should begin with closely comparable photographic works, considering the print's medium, dimensions, date, period, condition, restoration history, signature, inscriptions, edition details, and attribution. Provenance, exhibition history, catalogue references, and the relationship of the subject to recognized aspects of his practice can also affect comparability. Public auction records provide useful market evidence, but they do not represent every private transaction and may contain incomplete or changing attribution information. Reported totals should be compared consistently because some records include buyer premiums or other fees. A single median or auction result should not be treated as a valuation for an individual print. ## Appraisily data basis Appraisily artist pages combine artist identity research with auction records, auction-house context, sale dates, realized prices, and comparable lots when those records are available. ## Sources - The Museum of Modern Art: https://www.moma.org/artists/135 - Tate: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/manuel-alvarez-bravo-2719 - Manuel Alvarez Bravo: https://www.manuelalvarezbravo.org/ - Getty Vocabulary Program: https://vocab.getty.edu/page/ulan/500028115 - VIAF: https://viaf.org/viaf/76372784/ - Wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q712262 - Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manuel_%C3%81lvarez_Bravo - Appraisily: https://appraisily.com/artist/manuel-alvarez-bravo/