DIEGO RIVERA (1886-1957)
DIEGO RIVERA (1886-1957)
DIEGO RIVERA (1886-1957)
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DIEGO RIVERA (1886-1957)

La bañista en el río (Juchitán, Oaxaca)

Details
DIEGO RIVERA (1886-1957)
La bañista en el río (Juchitán, Oaxaca)
signed and dated 'Diego Rivera. 46' (lower left)
watercolor on thin japan paper
12 ¼ x 15 7⁄8 in. (31.1 x 40.3 cm.)
Executed in 1946.
Provenance
Galería de Arte Misrachi, Mexico City.
New Art Center Gallery (Weintraub), New York.
Lester Wolfe, New York; Sotheby's, New York, 29-30 May 1984, lot 146.
Acquired at the above sale by the present owner.
Literature
Diego Rivera: Catálogo General de Obra de Caballete, Mexico City, 1989, no. 1753 (illustrated, p. 228).
Exhibited
New York, The Rockefeller University, Contemporary Mexican Art, 1965-1966, no. 51.
Further Details
We are grateful to Professor Luis-Martín Lozano for his assistance cataloguing this work.

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Kristen France
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Lot Essay

La bañista en el río (Juchitán, Oaxaca) is part of a series of life studies from Rivera's sketchbooks, which the artist made into larger watercolors and are now dispersed in various collections. All depict Tehuana women bathing in the Juchitán River, near the southern coast of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec.
The present watercolor served as a sketch for the main figure in the large mural-format painting Juchitán River (Oaxaca) measuring 60 ¼ x 346 ½ in. (153 x 880 cm), a polyptych painted in oil on canvas mounted on wood, now in the collection of the Museo Nacional de Arte of the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes (INBA). The polyptych was the main source of inspiration for a glass tile mural Rivera later created in a technique known as Venetian mosaic. Rivera designed the mosaic mural for the Cuernavaca home of the noted Mexican publicist and film producer Santiago Reachi Fayad, founder of Posa Films. Reachi Fayad is credited for discovering and launching the career of the legendary comedian Mario Moreno Cantinflas.
Professor Luis-Martín Lozano, Art Historian

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