Diego Rivera: The Cubist Portraits 1913-1917

Focusing on the crucial stage of Rivera's career during the second decade of the twentieth century, which he spent in Paris and travelling Europe with other avant-garde intellectuals and artists, Diego Rivera: The Cubist Portraits 1913-17 examines the way in which the Cubist style he encountered there came to inform his own work.
Diego Rivera: The Cubist Portraits 1913-17 focuses on the crucial stage of Rivera's career during the second decade of the 20th century, which he spent in Paris and travelling in Europe with other avant-garde intellectuals and artists. An examination of these European adventures reveals the impact they had on Rivera and his work, especially the way in which the Cubist techniques he encountered came to inform his artistic modes of expression. Moreover, a close look at Rivera's Cubist portraits shows his interest in and development of a subject with which he was profoundly occupied in his later work - the human form.

Through an analysis of the distinct phases by which the artist developed his aptitude for portraiture and Cubist modes of expression, readers will gain a far greater understanding of his oeuvre. The project marks the first time that this particular facet of Rivera's work has been comprehensively studied, making a significant contribution to the scholarship on his life and work.

Sylvia Navarrete, curator of the exhibition, served as professor of contemporary art and art criticism at the Universidad Iberoamericana and the Escuela Nacional de Pintura, Escultura y Grabado, 'La Esmeralda', in Mexico. She is the author of various books and monographs, including Miguel Covarrubias, artist y explorador and Miradas y testimonies.

Serge Fauchereau, after serving as professor of American Literature at New York University and the University of Texas, Austin, became the commissioner of international exhibitions at the Centre Pompidou in Paris. He has published extensively on modern artists such as Georges Braque, Jean Art and Piet Mondrian.

Anna Indych-López is assistant professor of art history in the art department of The City College of New York (CUNY). Recent publications include essays on modern Mexican art in Art Bulletin, the exhibition catalogue Tamayo: A Modern Icon Reinterpreted, and A Principality of its Own: 40 Years of Visual Arts at the Americas Society, amongst others.

Joanne Klaar Walker is currently the William R. Leisher fellow in modern and contemporary painting conservation at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. She has previously held positions at the National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh, and the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.