Tina Modotti
1896 - 1942
Selected Puppet Studies from 'The Hairy Ape'

2 gelatin silver prints, comprising The Police Beating Yank and The Police Taking Yank Away, the latter credited and each with annotations in pencil on the reverse, framed, 1929
images to 5¾ by 9⅝ in. (14.6 by 24.4 cm.)
frames to 14 by 17½ in. (35.6 by 44.5 cm.)
Condition Report
Provenance
The photographer to the puppeteer, Louis Bunin
Private collection, acquired from the above, 1993
Sotheby's New York, 17 October 2006, Sale 8227, Lot 112
Literature
Aperture Masters of Photography: Tina Modotti (Aperture, 1999), p. 33
Tina Modotti: The Mexican Renaissance (Paris, 2000), p. 113
Margaret Hooks, Tina Modotti 55 (New York, 2002), p. 113
Catalogue Note
Russian-born artist and puppeteer Louis Bunin originally came to Mexico from Chicago to work as an assistant to Diego Rivera. A committed social activist, Bunin staged a marionette version of Eugene O'Neill's expressionist, anti-establishment play, The Hairy Ape at the Casa del Indio, Mexico City in 1929.
The Hairy Ape tells the story of Bob "Yank" Smith, a laborer on an ocean liner, who is insulted by the daughter of a ship owner. Yank begins a steep descent into mental and physical illness as he wanders the streets of New York, trying to find a place where he belongs. While visiting the zoo, he decides to release a gorilla, believing they are one and the same. The gorilla attacks Yank, fatally crushing his ribs, and throws him into the cage where he dies.