Assunta Adelaide Luigia Saltarini Modotti, known as Tina, was born on 17th August 1896 in Udine into a large family of very modest circumstances.

In 1905, his father, Giuseppe, emigrated to the United States in search of fortune. For this reason, at the age of twelve, Tina was forced to work as a labourer in a textile factory on the outskirts of the city. His first visits to the photography studio of his paternal uncle, Pietro Modotti, and learning the first rudiments of photography also date back to these years.

In 1913, she also emigrated, joining her father and one of her sisters. There, after a stint as a factory worker, she began modelling and took up acting, gaining a fair amount of acceptance and appreciation.

In 1918, she married the painter and poet Roubaix de l’Abrie Richey, nicknamed Robo, with whom she moved to Los Angeles. It was he who introduced her to the most politically and artistically stimulating circles in the city and introduced her to the internationally renowned photographer Edward Weston, who soon became her master in the art of photography. For her part, Modotti became his favourite model, his muse and eventually his lover.

Together they moved to Mexico, where they travelled extensively, taking photographs that were published in various magazines, winning prizes and awards. Modotti’s skill grew hand in hand with her style, which gradually became more defined and personal: photography became the tool for conveying messages that had an increasingly strong anthropological, social and political significance, denouncing poverty, degradation and social inequality.

She became the official photographer of the Mexican muralist movement and took part in various forms of activism. This involvement and her influential friendships – for example, with the painter Frida Kahlo and her husband Diego Rivera – brought her fame, consecrating the most intense period of her art.

However, due to some scandals and unsubstantiated accusations that she was involved as an accomplice in both the murder of her then partner, Julio Antonio Mella, and the assassination attempt on President Pascual Ortiz Rubio, Tina Modotti was expelled from Mexico in 1930. From that moment on, she stopped taking photographs for all the twelve years she had left to live.

She moved to Berlin, from where he travelled far and wide between Europe and the Soviet Union. And, in 1935, together with his new comrade, Vittorio Vidali, he participated in the Spanish Civil War, until 1939, when together they returned to Mexico under a false name.

Tina Modotti died on 5th January 1942 in Mexico City.

According to some, she was killed as a result of her involvement in many political scenarios, having become an uncomfortable presence; according to others, following a cardiac arrest. It was the poet Pablo Neruda who composed the epitaph that stands on her tombstone, in the Panteón de Dolores cemetery in the Mexican capital, where she was buried.

You can consult the birth certificate on the Ancestors Portal: Archivio di Stato di Udine > Stato civile italiano > Udine > 1896

The original is kept at the State Archives of Udine

For more on the figure of Tina Modotti, see the entry in the Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani edited by Giuliana Muscio.