Anton BRUEHL
Australia 1900 – United States of America 1982
United States from 1919

not titled [Mexican woman with baby] [c.1941]
dye-transfer colour photograph
image 34.4 (h) x 27.4 (w) cm
Gift of American Friends of the National Gallery of Australia, Inc., New York, NY, USA, made possible with the generous support of Anton Bruehl Jr, 2006.
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
NGA 2006.138

After the 1932 trip, which resulted in the publication of his book, Photographs of Mexico, Bruehl returned to Mexico on assignment, possibly on more than one occasion. This woman and child were also shot alongside a model wearing clothes by Elizabeth Anderson, in a ‘severely cut blouse made gay by squared-off ruffle’. It was published in a fashion spread, ‘Your Fashion Editor Goes to Mexico’ by Elizabeth Ambrose in the pages of the Woman’s Home Companion, a magazine with a readership of more than four million during the thirties and forties. This image illustrates that, as he had on his first trip, Bruehl made images of the locals alone –though this time he was able to capture the vibrant colours he encountered. As is characteristic of Bruehl’s colour work, however, the palette is limited and somewhat subdued, and the overall effect carefully controlled.