Anita Brenner facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Anita Brenner
|
|
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
Hanna Brenner
13 August 1905 |
| Died | 1 December 1974 (aged 69) Ojuelos de Jalisco, Mexico
|
| Nationality | Mexico United States |
| Occupation | Writer, anthropologist |
| Spouse(s) |
David Glusker
(m. 1930; sep. 1951) |
| Children | 2 |
Anita Brenner (born Hanna Brenner; 13 August 1905 – 1 December 1974) was a talented writer and thinker. She wrote many books and articles in English about the art, culture, and history of Mexico. Anita was born in Mexico. She grew up and went to school in the United States. In the 1920s, after the Mexican Revolution, she returned to Mexico.
She created the phrase 'Mexican Renaissance'. This term describes the amazing growth in Mexican culture after the revolution. Anita was the child of immigrants. She sometimes faced unfair treatment because of her background. But she also found many friends and teachers in Mexico and New York. Mexico was always her true home and interest. She was an important part of the art movement after the Mexican Revolution. This movement focused on celebrating Mexico's native cultures.
Anita earned a PhD in anthropology from Columbia University. Her first book, Idols Behind Altars, was very important. It was the first book to show and explain Mexican artworks, styles, and artists. It covered everything from ancient times to the 1920s. The book was filled with photos by famous photographers. It also included interviews with the most important artists of that time. Her fourth book, The Wind That Swept Mexico, told the story of the Mexican Revolution from 1910 to 1942. It was the first book in English or Spanish to tell the full story from a Mexican point of view.
Contents
Early Life in Mexico and Texas
Anita Brenner was born on August 13, 1905, in Aguascalientes, Mexico. Her parents, Isador and Paula Brenner, were Jewish immigrants from Latvia. During the Mexican Revolution, her family moved back and forth between Mexico and Texas.
In 1916, when Anita was 11, her family settled in San Antonio, Texas. But her nanny helped her keep a strong love for Mexico. She went to Our Lady of the Lake University for a short time. Then she took an English class at the University of Texas at Austin. After two semesters, she convinced her father to let her go back to Mexico. She felt left out at university because of unfair treatment. Her father agreed after friends promised to look after her.
Around age 18, she moved to Mexico City. There, she met many international artists and thinkers. Anita became a key person in this group. She also helped share Mexican art with readers in the U.S. For the first time, Anita felt truly accepted. She began to explore her Jewish heritage. She worked briefly for a Jewish service group. She helped new Jewish immigrants at the port of Veracruz. Anita quickly joined a group of artists and writers who supported social change. As a journalist, she was a strong voice for celebrating Mexico's native cultures.
Anita met important U.S. journalists like Carleton Beals and Ernest Gruening. Beals helped her start her writing career. She also helped Gruening with his book about Mexico. In 1924, her first article, "The Jew in Mexico," was published.
Mexico's President Plutarco Elías Calles heard about her work. He offered her a scholarship. This was for a program to preserve Mexican culture. Young people traveled the country to help protect native traditions. In 1926, Anita asked her friends Tina Modotti and Edward Weston to take photos for her book. This book was about Mexican decorative arts. The National Autonomous University of Mexico helped fund this project. Anita planned to document artworks in several Mexican states.
Modotti and Weston also took photos of Anita herself. Weston's photos focused on shapes and forms. Modotti's photos tried to show personality and social meaning. Her pictures of Anita showed her in a man's suit and hat. While these photos might seem like a statement about gender today, Anita and other female artists of her time were not usually feminists. They questioned their own limits, but not as a wider statement for society.
New York Years and Important Books
In 1927, Anita left Mexico for New York. She went to Columbia University. She had worked as a translator for a leading Mexican anthropologist. He encouraged her to get a doctorate degree. In 1929, she published her book on Mexican artwork. It was called Idols Behind Altars. The main idea of the book was that behind the Spanish Catholic culture, there was a true, hidden Mexican culture. This real culture was being rediscovered by the "Mexican Renaissance."
The book was very popular and is seen as her most important work. It was the first book to record art across Mexico. It also analyzed the works, styles, and artists. A famous writer, Katherine Anne Porter, said it was like a "who's who" of the Mexican art scene in the 1920s. It included artists like Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco. The book explained how these artists, both Mexican and foreign, brought back Mexico's native imagery.
Even without a bachelor's or master's degree, Anita finished her PhD in anthropology in 1930. She wrote her dissertation on an ancient site called Colhuacan. After getting her degree, she received a special scholarship called a Guggenheim Fellowship. This allowed her to study Aztec art in Mexico and Europe. During her travels, she wrote articles for The New York Times. She also worked as a war reporter during the Spanish Civil War.
Her travels in Mexico led to a travel guide called Your Mexican Holiday, published in 1932. For the next ten years, she wrote hundreds of articles. These appeared in many newspapers and magazines. She also wrote about Mexican art, culture, and politics for Jewish newspapers.
During this time, Anita helped many Mexican artists become known in the U.S. She introduced José Clemente Orozco to someone who helped him with his first New York art show. She also promoted artists like Diego Rivera and David Alfaro Siqueiros.
Politics and Independent Views
Many Mexican artists after the Revolution believed art should educate people. The government supported this idea. So, many artworks showed themes of revolution and communism. But the 1930s were a difficult time for political groups. Anita was a sympathizer, meaning she agreed with some communist ideas, but she was not always a party member.
As a reporter in Spain, Anita looked into Russia's role in the Spanish Civil War. She found that the Russian secret police were trying to silence critics. She believed that Joseph Stalin's actions would only benefit him, not the workers. In 1934, Anita and 24 others signed a letter against Stalin. This made a leading communist newspaper call her a "Trotskyist" (someone who followed Leon Trotsky's ideas). She replied that thinkers should question and criticize. She felt the Communist Party was stopping people from doing their job.
Anita sometimes wrote under the pen name "Jean Mendez" for newspapers that supported Trotskyism. In 1936, Anita sent a telegram to Diego Rivera from New York. She asked him to help Leon Trotsky find a safe place in Mexico. Trotsky had been exiled for nine years. Rivera quickly contacted Mexico's President Lázaro Cárdenas, who agreed to give Trotsky asylum.
Return to Mexico and Later Life
In 1940, Anita, her husband, and their two children moved back to Mexico. They went to her family's old farm in Aguascalientes. She started growing special crops like asparagus and garlic there.
Anita kept writing for U.S. publications. She also worked with her lifelong friend Jean Charlot on several children's books. In 1943, she published her fourth book, The Wind That Swept Mexico. She wrote the text, and George R. Leighton provided the photos. This was the first full story of the Mexican Revolution in English or Spanish.
It was also the first time the story was told from a Mexican point of view in English. Many U.S. newspapers had reported negatively on events in Mexico. Anita defended Mexico's right to decide its own future without outside interference. The book was highly praised when it first came out and again when it was reprinted in the 1970s.
In 1955, Anita started a monthly magazine called Mexico/This Month. She knew both Mexico and the U.S. well. This helped her introduce Mexico to English-speaking readers. The Mexican government offered her the Order of the Aztec Eagle. This is Mexico's highest honor for non-Mexicans. But she refused it, saying she was Mexican by birth. She did accept an award in 1967 for being a great tourism pioneer.
Personal Life
In July 1930, Anita married David Glusker. They separated in 1951. She had two children. Her daughter, Dr. Susannah Joel Glusker (1939-2013), taught at a university in Mexico City. Her son, Dr. Peter Glusker (1936–2020), was a doctor in California.
After Anita's death, her daughter Susannah Joel Glusker released two books. Avant-Garde Art & Artists in Mexico used Anita's diaries and notes from 1925 to 1930. It also included photos from Anita's files. Some photos were by Modotti and Weston. Susannah Glusker also wrote a book about her mother called Anita Brenner: A Mind of Her Own.
Anita Brenner died in a car accident on December 1, 1974, at age 69. This happened in Ojuelos de Jalisco, east of Aguascalientes.
Legacy
Anita Brenner is still an important person in Mexican art and history after the Revolution. She was very enthusiastic about Mexican art and culture. She actively worked to show its importance to people in the U.S. She was a great writer and journalist. Her work has been studied by many scholars who focus on Mexico. The Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles had an exhibition about Anita Brenner in 2017-2018. It was called "Another Promised Land: Anita Brenner's Mexico."
Selected works
- Idols Behind Altars: Modern Mexican Art and Its Cultural Antecedents (1929)
- Reprinted: ISBN: 9780486145754
- Your Mexican Holiday: A Modern Guide (1932)
- The Influence of Technique on the Decorative Style in the Domestic Pottery of Culhuacan (1930)
- Doctoral dissertation: Reprinted: ISBN: 9780404505639
- The Boy Who Could Do Anything & Other Mexican Folk Tales (1942)
- The Wind That Swept Mexico: The History of the Mexican Revolution, 1910-1942 (1943)
- Reprinted: ISBN: 9780208023537
- A Hero by Mistake (1953)
- Dumb Juan & the Bandits (1957)
- Mexico, This Month (1955–1971)
See also
In Spanish: Anita Brenner para niños
