Reva Brooks

(1913-2004)

Reva BrooksReva Brooks left Canada in 1947 along with her husband Leonard who planned to study painting in Mexico for a year. They settled in the small Mexican town of San Miguel de Allende where Leonard began studying painting.

Accompanying Leonard on his painting trips, Reva began to photograph the local Mexican population and after a short time one of her photographs "Confrontation" came to the attention of Edward Weston and Ansel Adams, as well as Edward Steichen who purchased the photograph for inclusion in the New York Museum of Modern Art's Family of man exhibit.

Reva BrooksAside from being part of the Family of man exhibit in 1955, Reva's photographs have graced the cover of Aperture magazine, and have been part of many museum exhibits, including the San Francisco Art Museum in 1975 where she was selected as one of the top 50 women photographers of all time.

The two Reva Brooks photographs in our collection are both Untitled, but signed in pencil bottom right on the mat. The first one (above left) is a Portrait of Elodia photographed in 1953, and is similar to the photograph exhibited at the Family of man exhibit in New York. The second photograph (right) shows two Mexican children playing in the water at San Miguel.

Reva died in 2004 at the age of 90.