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Portrait of Marevna

Cubist style painting of seated woman, with brown, blue, green shapes.
© 2018 Banco de México Diego Rivera Frida Kahlo Museums Trust, Mexico, D.F. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

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  • Cubist style painting of seated woman, with brown, blue, green shapes.

Date:

c. 1915

Artist:

Diego Rivera (Mexican, 1886–1957)

About this artwork

Early in his career, Diego Rivera enjoyed a brief but sparkling period as a Cubist painter. After years of rigorous art training in Mexico City, he traveled throughout Europe from 1907 to 1910. In l9l2 Rivera settled in Paris, where he befriended other emigré avant-garde artists, such as Amedeo Modigliani and Piet Mondrian. During World War l, he became a leading member of a group of Cubists that included Albert Gleizes, Juan Gris, and Jean Metzinger.

The subject of this portrait is Rivera’s lover at the time, Marevna Vorobëv-Stebelska, a Russian-born painter and writer. Photographs of the sitter, which show her distinctive bobbed hair, blond bangs, and prominent nose, reveal Rivera’s gifts of observation. Seated in an overstuffed armchair, she turns away from the book she holds in her lap, as if momentarily—perhaps angrily—distracted. Vorobëv-Stebelska is stylishly dressed in a gold-brocade bodice, white sleeves, and a dress whose shape hints at a pair of crossed legs. To her right appears a green, faux-marble form that may be a fireplace, and behind her is a schematically rendered window and shutters. In this Synthetic Cubist composition, Rivera used color to suggest spatial recession, making the planes meant to be closer to the viewer brighter than those at further remove. The painting’s somber and rich color harmonies recall the palette of Gris.

Following World War I and the Russian Revolution, Rivera, like many other artists in Paris, rejected Cubism as frivolous and inappropriate for the new age. In 1921 the painter returned to Mexico, which itself had emerged from a decade of revolutionary struggle. There, adopting monumental forms that suited the country’s new political reality, he began to produce work for which he is acclaimed today: paintings, graphics, and, above all, murals depicting Mexican political and cultural life.

Status

On View, Gallery 271

Department

Arts of the Americas

Artist

Diego Rivera

Title

Portrait of Marevna

Place

Mexico (Artist's nationality:)

Date  Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

c. 1915

Medium

Oil on canvas

Inscriptions

Signed lower left: D. M. R.

Dimensions

145.7 × 112.7 cm (57 3/8 × 44 3/8 in.)

Credit Line

Alfred Stieglitz Collection, gift of Georgia O'Keeffe

Reference Number

1957.628

Copyright

© 2018 Banco de México Diego Rivera Frida Kahlo Museums Trust, Mexico, D.F. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Extended information about this artwork

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.

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