“Unlike thinkers who work with their hands in their brains, Manuel Álvarez Bravo works with his brain in his hands. I like to imagine him as Saint Dionysius, who has his head in the right place, given that he is holding it in his hands”.  

 Xavier Villaurrutia

"Profound and discreet poetry, desperate and refined irony emanate from the photographs of Manuel Álvarez Bravo, like those particles suspended in the air which render visible a ray of light as it penetrates a dark room. The emotive particles reach us by a slow and continuous flight; little by little they saturate us."

Diego Rivera

"He has shown us everything that is poetic in Mexico. Where Manuel Álvarez Bravo has stopped to photograph a light, a sign, a silence,  it is not only where Mexico’s heart beats, but also where the artist has been able to feel, with a unique vision, the totally objective value of his emotion."

André Breton

"For many years, when one mentioned Mexican photography, only one name came to mind _Manuel Álvarez Bravo. Until the emergence of a younger generation, the stature of his camera work overshadowed any other work being produced in this branch of the arts in Mexico. He is one of the giants of twentieth century photography and represents not only an entire country, but a whole style and school of image-making. In Álvarez Bravo´s inimitable photographs every image is a closed world governed by its own logic, where the inusual becomes commonplace."

Nissan Perez

"His work is rooted firmly in his love and compassionate understanding of his own country, its people, their problems and their needs. These he has never ceased to explore and to know intimately… He is a man who has mastered a medium which  he uses to speak with warmth about Mexico as Atget spoke about Paris."

Paul Strand

Manuel Álvarez Bravo by Lola Álvarez Bravo, 1980s

Manuel Álvarez Bravo and Octavio Paz by Colette Urbajtel

Manuel Álvarez Bravo by Antonio Reynoso, 1960s