Description:
bust portrait of a man with glasses, red shirt and brown jacket seen from chest up, holding up in both hands a piece of white paper with hand written text; man; self-portrait; reading/reading material
Label Text:
Diego Rivera's style shows the influences of Mexican folk art from his studies with José Guadalupe Posada, and the modernism and cubism he studied in Europe. Returning to Mexico in 1921, he became popular in both the United States and Mexico and is best known for his expansive murals of the 1920s and 1930s celebrating Mexican history.
Rivera painted this self-portrait (one of approximately twenty in his lifetime) at the height of his career. Irene Rich, the actress and mother of sculptor and Smith Aaumna Frances Rich, commissioned him to come to Santa Barbara, California, to do a painting while Frances Rich sculpted his head. He finished first, so Irene Rich commissioned him to do another painting - this self-portrait - while the sculpture was being completed.
The text in the portrait reads: "I painted this for the beautiful and famous artist Irene Rich, and it was done in the city of Santa Barbara, Southern California during the month of January of 1941 Diego Rivera."
Other label: Diego Rivera is best known as a leading member of the Mexican muralists. In 1940, while Rivera was in San Francisco painting a fresco (a technique of painting on wet plaster) for the Golden Gate International Exposition, he met sculptor Frances (“Fran”) Rich (class of 1931) and her mother, film actress Irene Rich. Rivera was commissioned by Irene Rich to come to her Santa Barbara home to paint a fresco portrait of her daughter.
In January 1941, while Rivera painted his fresco portrait of Fran Rich, she modeled a portrait bust of him. Rivera finished first and stayed on to paint and complete this self-portrait (in oil on canvas rather than fresco) commissioned by the American businessman Sigmund Firestone. While her daughter was still working on the bust, Irene Rich intervened to buy the self-portrait, which Rivera dedicated to her on the paper he holds in his hand. He then painted another, similar self-portrait for Firestone (see illustration).
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=SC+1977.63.1 |
