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拍品专文
A national icon, Rivera stands alongside José Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiros as one of “Los Tres Grandes,” the outstanding figures of the Mural movement that catalyzed Mexico in the wake of the Revolution. Three decades later, in the twilight of his career, he found new creative possibilities in small-scale paintings, which “often commendably consolidated early innovations in a more private and personal vein,” as art historian David Craven observes. “Rivera was drawn to and excelled at the genres of landscape painting and portraiture” (Diego Rivera as Epic Modernist, New York, 1997, p. 152).
Rivera made a number of significant portraits in these years, notably of the film star María Félix (1948 and 1949), his daughter Ruth Rivera (1949), and his patron Dolores Olmedo (1955). “In most of his portraits of women, Rivera allowed sensuality to live in his work, a quality that had vanished from the murals after Chapingo,” notes his biographer Pete Hamill. “Flesh is flesh in these paintings, lovingly, almost caressingly painted; the bodies have volume; the expressions on faces are suggestive of interesting erotic lives. . . . He was looking for some deeper psychological truth, a macho penetration of the subject. Today, those society portraits have more aesthetic life than any of the embalmed illustrations on the walls of the National Palace or those that were done for the New Workers School” (Diego Rivera, New York, 1999, p. 172).
Portrait of María Bonilla Porras is an endearing example of Rivera’s society portraits from this time. Feminine and demure, his life-sized subject wears a satiny turquoise-blue dress decorated with a pink flower that complements her rosy complexion; the inscription appears in a ribbon that floats above her. A similar banner appears in Rivera’s portrait of the actress Dolores Del Río (1938) as well as in works by his wife Frida Kahlo, including the wedding portrait Frieda and Diego Rivera (1931) and A Few Small Nips (1935). “To Diego painting is everything,” Kahlo reflected in 1949. “He prefers his work to anything else in the world. It is his vocation and his vacation in one. For as long as I have known him, he has spent most of his waking hours at painting: between twelve and eighteen a day” (in D. Craven, Diego Rivera as Epic Modernist, op. cit., p. 169).
Abby McEwen, Assistant Professor, University of Maryland, College Park
Rivera made a number of significant portraits in these years, notably of the film star María Félix (1948 and 1949), his daughter Ruth Rivera (1949), and his patron Dolores Olmedo (1955). “In most of his portraits of women, Rivera allowed sensuality to live in his work, a quality that had vanished from the murals after Chapingo,” notes his biographer Pete Hamill. “Flesh is flesh in these paintings, lovingly, almost caressingly painted; the bodies have volume; the expressions on faces are suggestive of interesting erotic lives. . . . He was looking for some deeper psychological truth, a macho penetration of the subject. Today, those society portraits have more aesthetic life than any of the embalmed illustrations on the walls of the National Palace or those that were done for the New Workers School” (Diego Rivera, New York, 1999, p. 172).
Portrait of María Bonilla Porras is an endearing example of Rivera’s society portraits from this time. Feminine and demure, his life-sized subject wears a satiny turquoise-blue dress decorated with a pink flower that complements her rosy complexion; the inscription appears in a ribbon that floats above her. A similar banner appears in Rivera’s portrait of the actress Dolores Del Río (1938) as well as in works by his wife Frida Kahlo, including the wedding portrait Frieda and Diego Rivera (1931) and A Few Small Nips (1935). “To Diego painting is everything,” Kahlo reflected in 1949. “He prefers his work to anything else in the world. It is his vocation and his vacation in one. For as long as I have known him, he has spent most of his waking hours at painting: between twelve and eighteen a day” (in D. Craven, Diego Rivera as Epic Modernist, op. cit., p. 169).
Abby McEwen, Assistant Professor, University of Maryland, College Park