Anita Brenner

On the occasion of the centennial of her birth, Anita Brenner has been remembered as a collector, a writer and a crucial force in twentieth-century history--on one reporting trip from Mexico to Europe she sent Diego Rivera a telegram reading, "Uncle is sick and would like a Mexican holiday." Shortly afterwards Leon Trotsky made his way to sanctuary with Rivera in Mexico City. Sanctuary of a sort--Rivera later bragged that he had taken Trotsky in so as to arrange his assassination. Brenner, who wrote regularly for the New York Times and The Nation, had also served as a conduit north for Rivera's early work, and was widely known as an editor (the magazine she founded and ran, Mexico/This Month, was published for 17 years), an author (her history of Mexico, Idols Behind Altars, was illustrated by Edward Weston and Tina Modotti) and not least, a central hostess of her era (with friends like the Italian anarchist Carlo Tresca, underground agent Whittaker Chambers and artists Frida Kahlo, Henry Moore and Isamu Noguchi). Anita Brenner presents, for the first time, the art collection that reflects this extraordinary, inimitable life, featuring previously unpublished work by Rivera and others, pre-Hispanic objects, folk art and photographs by Weston, Modotti and more