Tina Modotti's Mexico: A tale of love and revolution

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Hayman situates Modotti (1896-1942) profoundly within her social period from her emigration to San Francisco to a full-fledged member of the intellectual wing of the Mexican Communist Party. She became the lover of Cuban revolutionary Julio Antonio Mella and when he was murdered, Modotti became the main suspect. When the Mexican president was assassinated, she was accused and deported. She returned to Mexico many years later and lived alone in a small cottage until her mysterious death in a taxi at age 46. Octavio Paz claimed that Modotti belonged "more to the history of passions than to the history of ideologies."