Ten years of research and the discovery of long-forgotten letters and photos enabled Patricia Albers to bring new recognition to this talented, intelligent, and independent photographer whose life embodied the cultural and political values of many artists of the post-World War I generation.

Patricia Albers is a writer and independent curator who has also worked as a museum administrator. In 1996 she organized the exhibition Dear Vocio: Photographs by Tina Modotti. And in 2000 she curated Tina Modotti and the Mexican Renaissance, which traveled in Europe.

"When she died in poverty on January 5, 1942, in Mexico City, the entire intellectual community turned out for her funeral…. Albers not only faithfully depicts the historical panorama, but also provides the day-to-day nuances and heartbreakingly evocative anecdotes of an emotionally overwhelming tragedy."--Jules Siegel, San Francisco Chronicle Book Review

"Albers has managed scrupulously to weave together all the loose strands of Modotti's life, without trying to prettify the sometimes clashing patterns that emerge. As in the photographer's finest work, the textures are more fascinating when allowed to retain a bit of the mystery."--Ted Loos, New York Times Book Review

"While Shadows, Fire, Snow goes a long way toward rich clarification (the gorgeous title is from the Pablo Neruda poem that graces her tombstone) Modotti remains an elusive presence, a woman impossible to synopsize, which was perhaps just how she wanted it."--Katherine Dieckmann, Voice Literary Supplement

"Albers' rendition of Modotti's life goes a long way toward allowing us to understand this extraordinary woman."--Publishers Weekly

"Looking beyond Modotti's liaisons and life as a photographer in Mexico, Albers takes her subject off the pedestal created by Edward Weston's ethereal photographs. In this accessible work—the first comprehensive biography—Albers sees the very human Modotti as a passionate artist, inexhaustible political organizer, and modern woman."—Library Journal, also voted one of Library Journal's Best Books of 1999

"Albers' strength lies in the way she uses the clues Modotti left behind."—Meredith Kahn, Harpers Bazaar

"Interesting, frustrating, saddening. Interesting because Modotti did inhabit many different lives; frustrating because so many questions are left unanswered here; saddening because in her effort to do 'good' for the Larger World, Modotti was directly or indirectly responsible for so much pain."—Carolyn See, Washington Post