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Lot Essay
From 1931 onwards, Diego Rivera achieved unprecedented success in the United States extending from the east to the west coasts. The artist received mural commissions in San Francisco, and later in Detroit, New York, and Chicago (the latter never realized). However, his crowning achievement came in 1931 when he was honored with a one-person exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art in New York, second only to Henri Matisse, who had been the subject of a retrospective earlier that same year.
Rivera’s growing prestige was not only the result of the critical acclaim received for his al fresco murals in some of the most well-known public buildings in Mexico City, such as the Palacio Nacional de Bellas Artes and the Secretaría de Educación Pública, but also for his participation in the Paris avant-garde circles as a distinguished cubist and follower of Paul Cezanne, a friend of Pablo Picasso’s and of others who were part of the Galerie L’Effort Moderne, whose director was Léonce Rosenberg. As such, Rivera was not only the foremost painter of the post-Revolution Mexican Mural Movement, but also, in the eyes of Alfred Barr, the artist’s work undoubtedly reflected universal dialogues with the history of art, from Antiquity and the Italian Renaissance to the School of Paris.
In June 1931, while in Mexico, Rivera was visited by arts promoter, Frances Flynn Paine, to discuss the preparations for his New York exhibition. Flynn Paine, was acting in representation of Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, the staunch arts patron, and founder and promoter of MoMA’s programs, and who, since 1930, with the support of Alfred Barr had been planning an exhibition of the artist’s work at The Museum of Modern Art. It was also Flynn Paine, who was charged with the task of ensuring that several important works by Rivera entered Abby Rockefeller’s personal collection, including this magnificent painting rarely on public view since 1937. Abby, who was married to John D. Rockefeller, Jr., had first visited Mexico in the early 1890s, during the Belle Epoque era of Porfirio Díaz and became fascinated with Mexican culture; as such it was not unusual that years later, she would acquire one of Rivera’s most emblematic works of the 1930s. The monumental oil painting titled, The Rivals, was completed in a makeshift studio aboard the Morro Castle—the ship that in November 1931 transported Rivera and Frida Kahlo to New York.
Commissioned by Abby Rockefeller, the work remained in her collection until the early 1940s when it was then gifted to her son David Rockefeller and daughter-in-law Peggy on the occasion of their nuptials. In this painting, Rivera puts his unparalleled skills as a painter and colorist on full display no doubt to impress his benefactor, the principal supporter of his MoMA retrospective. The scene, inspired by "la fiesta de Las Velas", depicts an annual tradition indigenous to the Isthmus region of Oaxaca for which women wear embroidered huipiles or blouses, attractive gold jewelry and their hair pulled into moños (buns) and, enaguas or skirts in bright colors. The feast has indigenous roots, and is celebrated during the month of May in honor of family patron saints, amidst exotic palm trees, and papel picado or delicately cut multicolor sheets of tissue paper strung from the roofs to enliven the festivities.
Yet the theme, so profoundly Mexican, is not necessarily the painting’s most captivating feature, but rather the modern use of multiple planes coupled with the artist’s chromatic sensibility which Rivera makes full use of to resolve the painting. The vibrant tones and the sinuousness of certain compositional elements echo the decorative and sensual qualities found in Matisse’s paintings of the 1930s, including works such as La Conversation. For Abby Rockefeller, whose incredible largess as an arts patron had also extended to Matisse, the subject of a recent MoMA retrospective, the aesthetic affinities between the two international modern painters must have seemed undeniable.
Prof. Luis-Martín Lozano, art historian
Rivera’s growing prestige was not only the result of the critical acclaim received for his al fresco murals in some of the most well-known public buildings in Mexico City, such as the Palacio Nacional de Bellas Artes and the Secretaría de Educación Pública, but also for his participation in the Paris avant-garde circles as a distinguished cubist and follower of Paul Cezanne, a friend of Pablo Picasso’s and of others who were part of the Galerie L’Effort Moderne, whose director was Léonce Rosenberg. As such, Rivera was not only the foremost painter of the post-Revolution Mexican Mural Movement, but also, in the eyes of Alfred Barr, the artist’s work undoubtedly reflected universal dialogues with the history of art, from Antiquity and the Italian Renaissance to the School of Paris.
In June 1931, while in Mexico, Rivera was visited by arts promoter, Frances Flynn Paine, to discuss the preparations for his New York exhibition. Flynn Paine, was acting in representation of Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, the staunch arts patron, and founder and promoter of MoMA’s programs, and who, since 1930, with the support of Alfred Barr had been planning an exhibition of the artist’s work at The Museum of Modern Art. It was also Flynn Paine, who was charged with the task of ensuring that several important works by Rivera entered Abby Rockefeller’s personal collection, including this magnificent painting rarely on public view since 1937. Abby, who was married to John D. Rockefeller, Jr., had first visited Mexico in the early 1890s, during the Belle Epoque era of Porfirio Díaz and became fascinated with Mexican culture; as such it was not unusual that years later, she would acquire one of Rivera’s most emblematic works of the 1930s. The monumental oil painting titled, The Rivals, was completed in a makeshift studio aboard the Morro Castle—the ship that in November 1931 transported Rivera and Frida Kahlo to New York.
Commissioned by Abby Rockefeller, the work remained in her collection until the early 1940s when it was then gifted to her son David Rockefeller and daughter-in-law Peggy on the occasion of their nuptials. In this painting, Rivera puts his unparalleled skills as a painter and colorist on full display no doubt to impress his benefactor, the principal supporter of his MoMA retrospective. The scene, inspired by "la fiesta de Las Velas", depicts an annual tradition indigenous to the Isthmus region of Oaxaca for which women wear embroidered huipiles or blouses, attractive gold jewelry and their hair pulled into moños (buns) and, enaguas or skirts in bright colors. The feast has indigenous roots, and is celebrated during the month of May in honor of family patron saints, amidst exotic palm trees, and papel picado or delicately cut multicolor sheets of tissue paper strung from the roofs to enliven the festivities.
Yet the theme, so profoundly Mexican, is not necessarily the painting’s most captivating feature, but rather the modern use of multiple planes coupled with the artist’s chromatic sensibility which Rivera makes full use of to resolve the painting. The vibrant tones and the sinuousness of certain compositional elements echo the decorative and sensual qualities found in Matisse’s paintings of the 1930s, including works such as La Conversation. For Abby Rockefeller, whose incredible largess as an arts patron had also extended to Matisse, the subject of a recent MoMA retrospective, the aesthetic affinities between the two international modern painters must have seemed undeniable.
Prof. Luis-Martín Lozano, art historian