A Mexican Romance: Photographer Edward Weston and his contemporaries

Leaving his wife and studio business behind, photographer Edward Weston set off with a mistress for Mexico hoping "to start life anew."

Over the course of extended stays in 1923 and 1926, his imagination was enflamed by the brilliant sunlight, mixed indigenous and Spanish cultures and revolutionary fervor that found expression in his photographs.

A stimulating new exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, "Viva Mexico!" uses rarely shown images to explore the career-shaping impact of these years on Weston's approach to photography.

Curator Karen Haas described the exhibit as "a wonderful opportunity for our visitors to experience Weston's stunning Mexican photographs firsthand.

"These rich, warm-toned prints, when seen in context with photographs by his contemporaries in Mexico during the 1920s and 1930s promise to be a revelation even to those who know Weston's work well."

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Visitors will rediscover a major American photographer whose actual and artistic vision appears to have been rarefied by the land and its inhabitants, inspiring in him deep feelings that he expressed with admiring restraint.

Organized by Haas, "Viva Mexico" showcases 45 often striking photographs, including 30 rare shots by Weston, that provide illuminating glimpses into the way expatriate artists portrayed Mexico, often reflecting their own cultural baggage.

"I have always wanted to do this show," said Haas, the MFA's Lane Collection Curator of Photographs. "This period of Weston's life has been underrepresented, under-researched and relatively unknown."

Subtitled "Edward Weston and his Contemporaries," this show runs through Nov. 2 in the Herb Ritts Gallery. The works on display are drawn from the museum's collection and the prestigious Lane Collection which is on long-term loan to the MFA.

The exhibit examines Weston at a crucial career stage as he moved beyond earlier soft-focused pictorialism into the elemental clarity of the modernism that defined his mature work.

The photos on display are as sharp and exact as X-rays. Yet Weston imbued these platinum prints with such subtle contrasts of light and shadow they seem to shimmer as if seen through heat vapors.

In portraits such as "Galvan Shooting" and "Rose Roland," his living subjects are depicted with the timelessness of sculptures. Though rendered with biological exactitude, his still lifes of plants and fruit, such as "Palmilla" and "Chayotes," seem bursting with vital energy.

And his portraits of the shapely Modotti sunbathing nude on the roof of his home convey the barely subdued passion of an artist liberated from restricting conventions.

The exhibit also introduces Weston's mixed bag of fellow bohemians, including expatriate artists such as Modotti and Paul Strand, and Mexican artists Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera.

An actress who developed into a serious photographer as evidenced by her striking "Worker's Hands," Modotti emerges as an intriguing artist and political activist worthy of her own show. Haas said Weston and Modotti first left for Mexico "strangely enough with the blessings of his wife who said, 'Tina, take care of my boy."'

While best known for his classic black-and-white photos of peppers and shells, Weston began shooting in Mexico what Haas called "monumental portraits" of friends and acquaintances, nudes of Modotti and sharp, precise photos of ordinary people, colonial architecture and spare landscapes.

Haas observed Weston created these "heroic" portraits by the technical innovation of aiming his Graphlex camera "slightly below eye level" to render their faces "sculpturally" in ways reminiscent of naturalistic statues of Mexico's pre-Columbia Olmec culture. On an opening day tour, she quoted Weston's biographer who observed "Mexico was (his) Paris."

While "Viva Mexico" focuses on Weston and other American artists, a companion exhibit, "Vida Y Drama: Modern Mexican Prints," provides a revealing contrast by exploring three decades of printmaking by Mexico's own artists.

Weston once described his own work as an attempt to reveal "the very substance and quintessence of the thing itself."

At its best, "Viva Mexico" lets viewers see Weston teaching himself to achieve this artistic credo.

THE ESSENTIALS:

The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 465 Huntington Ave., is open seven days a week.

HOURS: 10 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. Saturday through Tuesday; and 10 a.m. to 9:45 p.m. Wednesday through Friday (after 5 p.m. Thursday and Friday, only the West Wing is open).

ADMISSION: Admission (which includes two visits in a 10-day period) is $17 for adults; $15 for seniors and students 18 and older. Admission for students who are university members is free as is admission for children under 17 during non-school hours.

For Spanish-speaking visitors, the exhibit's wall text is provided in Spanish and English.

The MFA is offering several courses, events and activities in conjunction with this exhibit.

• Wednesday, June 17 at 6 p.m.: Karen Haas will discuss "Viva Mexico."
• Thursday, June 25 at 11 a.m. and Thursday, July 9 at 11 a.m.: Assistant Curator Elizabeth K. Mitchell will lecture on "Ancient Meets Avant-Garde: Mexican Prints."
• Wednesday, July 15 at 6 p.m. and Sunday, Aug. 9 at 2 p.m.: Local artist Raul Gonzalez will discuss "The Big Three" and Mexican printmaking.

For information, call 617-267-9300 or visit www.mfa.org.