Tina Modotti d’Ángel De la Calle : un imaginaire (auto)(bio)graphique

• Main Author: Marie-Caroline Leroux
• Format: Article
• Language: fra
• Published: Pléiade (EA 7338) 2018-02-01
• Series: Itinéraires
• Subjects: comics; De la Calle; Tina Modotti; biography; autobiography; photography
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/itineraires/3739

The object of the present study is Ángel De la Calle’s Tina Modotti (2011). This graphic biography tells the story of the eponymous Italian photographer and communist activist (1896-1942).On a narrative level, the biographical line is coupled with a secondary line, alternately autobiographical and autofictional, where the author projects himself into a drawn fictional double to evoke the genesis of his work. I will attempt to examine how both versions of the author coexist with the biographical material and to what extent the biography serves, in this specific context, as a stage for the biographer.To do so, I will begin by analyzing the mechanisms of the biographical level since, despite the use of the first person singular, efforts are made to keep the narrative as objective as possible. I will also discuss the role of graphic imagination in transmitting documentary information. I will then focus on the second narrative line which, at times, drifts onto the universe of fiction. Finally, studying those two aspects will allow to perceive the significance of the author’s esthetic choices because his graphic imagination is fundamentally serving the biographical relationship and its identifying dynamic.