Reva Brooks, 1913-2004

Influential, Canadian-born photographer Reva Brooks died at the age of 90 on January 24, 2004 in Mexico. Selected as one of the top 50 women photographers of all time by the San Francisco Art Museum in 1975. Brooks and her artist husband, Leonard Brooks moved to Mexico in 1947 and began their journey of exploring the vibrant Mexican culture through their art.

Born in Toronto on May 10, 1913 to Polish immigrants. Brooks was part of a seven-sibling family including the late Al, Bunny and David Silverman. After dropping out of high school and working as a secretary in Toronto, she married Leonard Brooks in 1936.

Upon receiving a Veterans Affairs grant in 1947, Leonard (an official Canadian Navy artist in the Second World War) and Reva moved to San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. With the intention of staying a year to focus on Leonard's painting, the couple established themselves in the artistic community and never again returned to the harsh Canadian climate. Through their 50-year stay in Mexico, they played a pinnacle role in establishing San Miguel de Allende as a world-renowned artist colony.

At the age of 34, Reva picked up a camera and started recording the painted canvases of her husband. Within a few years of photographing the Mexican people throughout the countryside on painting trips with Leonard, Reva's compelling photographs came to the attention of leading U.S. photographers Edward West-on and Ansel Adams. The image of a dead child and a grieving mother, "Confrontation, Elodia" gained Brooks recognition in Mexico, the U.S. and Europe. Edward Steichen bought this photograph for the Museum of Modern Art in 1952 to include in one of the most influential photography exhibits in history, "Family of Man."

Brooks' last solo show was held at the Art Gallery of Ontario in 2002. Her work was also featured at the Sala de Arte Publico Siqueiros in Mexico City in a joint exhibition with artist David Alfaro Siqueiros in 2003. This exhibit debuted the release of the book Reva Brooks: Photographs published by M+M Art Press. Another book, Leonard and Reva Brooks: Artists in Exile in San Miguel de Allende, was published by McGill-Queen's University Press and released in 2001. Authored by John Virtue, it delivers a thorough biography of this creative couple caught up in the passionate Mexican art scene.

Her husband Leonard, two sisters, and a brother in Toronto survive Reva Brooks.

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