Background
Reva Silverman was born in Toronto, Ontario in May 1913.
Reva Silverman was born in Toronto, Ontario in May 1913.
The San Francisco Museum of Art chose Reva Brooks as one of the top 50 women photographers in history.
Her parents, Moritz Silverman and Jenny Kleinberg had immigrated to Canada from Poland. In 1935 Reva married the artist Frank Leonard Brooks. While they were on a trip to San Miguel de Allende she took up photography.
They arrived in 1947, planning to stay for a year while Frank Brooks studied painting, and eventually stayed for fifty years.
On 12 August 1950 Leonard and Reva Brooks, as well as Stirling Dickinson and five other American teachers, were deported from Mexico. The official reason was that they did not have proper work visas but the cause may have been a falling out with the owner of a rival art school.
In September-October 1950, before the official opening, the Instituto Allende in San Miguel gave an exhibition of the work of local artists. Works by both Leonard and Reva Brooks were included in this show.
In 1955 some of her work was included in the Museum of Modern Art"s The Family of Manitoba exhibition, one of the first major exhibitions of photography.
She participated in many exhibitions in cities around the world, with her last solo show being at the Art Gallery of Ontario in 2002. She died in San Miguel de Allende in 2004.
The couple were early members of what became a well known colony of artists in that town.