Introduction
Miguel Covarrubias (1904–1957) is recognized internationally as a key
participant in the cultural exchange between Mexico and the United States
after World War I. Arriving in New York City in 1923, he took the city by
storm, becoming one of its leading modern caricaturists. His brush and ink
drawings of the newsworthy and trendsetting figures of the day were regular
features in Vanity Fair, Vogue and the New Yorker.
In the 1930s, Covarrubias turned his energies to archaeology and writing.
His first major book, Island of Bali, documented the island’s vibrant but
fragile culture just before the advance of war and western modernization.
The success of his second signature book, Mexico South: The Isthmus of
Tehuantepec, set the focus for future research and writings on the native
cultures of Mexico and the Americas.
Drawn primarily from the Nickolas Muray Collection of Mexican Art, this
centennial exhibition calls attention to the flowering of cultural relations
between the United States and Mexico during the 1920s and touches on the
rise of the celebrity caricature movement. It focuses on Covarrubias’s
contributions to modern caricature and traces his development as an author
and archeologist. The exhibition also brings to light the camaraderie shared
by an important circle of modern Mexican artists who, together with
Covarrubias, helped inspire the cultural phenomenon the New York Times
called “the enormous vogue of things Mexican.”
The Vogue for Modern Caricature
It was an age of miracles, it was an age of art, it was an age of excess, and it
was an age of satire.
––F. Scott Fitzgerald, Echoes of the Jazz Age,
1931
The groundwork for a new type of caricature, one that explored
celebrity culture with a modern eye, was well established by the time
Covarrubias arrived in New York City in 1923. A new generation of artists
had expanded and redefined the centuries old traditions of graphic satire.
Rather than employ grotesquery or a dark analysis of their subjects, they
instead offered witty, upbeat critiques of the day’s popular subjects.
Featured prominently in magazines such as Life, Puck, and Shadowland and,
later, Vanity Fair and The New Yorker, this modern form of portraiture
provided fresh commentary on contemporary society and urban living. By
the 1920s, the vogue for caricature had become a craze and with the
introduction of new color printing technologies in the 1930s, the medium
matured into a vibrant and compelling art form.
The pioneering artists featured here helped define caricature’s
evolution at the turn of the century. Britain’s acclaimed caricaturist Max
Beerbohm and Swiss-Italian artist Carlo de Fornaro contributed their
drawings and critical essays on caricature to newspapers, magazines, and
their own books; bringing a simple elegance as well as a sophisticated
sensibility to the art of caricature. Along with Beerbohm, the artwork of
SPY (Sir Leslie Ward) appeared regularly in the British Vanity Fair. SPY’s
portraits of notable personalities were comparatively mild visual
commentaries, more closely aligned with the nineteenth century’s genre of
illustrated biographies than with America’s new cutting edge caricature.
The Covarrubias Circle
Nickolas Muray (1892-1965), the acclaimed celebrity photographer of
the 1920s and 1930s, acquired a small but remarkable collection of Mexican
art during his lifetime. The collection is valued today for its intrinsic worth,
but it also represents Muray’s spirited interaction with a circle of Mexico’s
first generation of modern artists visiting and living in New York City. It
included Miguel Covarrubias and his wife, the dancer and photographer
Rose Rolanda, Frida Kahlo and her husband, Diego Rivera, and Rufino and
Olga Tamayo among others.
Covarrubias and Muray both gained acclaim in New York as celebrity
portraitists, becoming artistic peers and confidantes in business and personal
affairs. Their lasting relationship––initially sustained through the publishing
business––enabled Muray to acquire ninety of his close friend’s caricature
drawings, paintings, and book and magazine illustrations. Miguel
Covarrubias’s artworks were Muray’s earliest acquisitions and compose the
largest part of his collection. Indeed, it is one of the largest collections of
Covarrubias’s artwork in North America.
Muray’s alliance with Covarrubias also provided entry to a circle of
artists distinguished today for their individual contributions to postrevolutionary Mexican art. Spanning the years 1925 to 1954, the collection
reflects a range of aesthetic shifts and modernist influences in Mexican art
common during the period. The University acquired Muray’s collection in
1966.
[Table Case #1]
Introductory label
A Budding Mexican Modernist (1923-1928)
A welcome exists for Mexican artists [in the United States]. There is a
sincere and noble sympathy of which we should take advantage in order to
tighten the bonds of friendship between the two peoples and to make our art
known.
––Tato Nacho (Fernández Esperón), Composer, 1925
By the time Miguel Covarrubias arrived in New York he was already
an established artist in Mexico earning a living as a caricaturist, teaching art
classes, and organizing exhibitions of folk arts and crafts. In this case is a
broadside by Jose Guadalupe Posada, Mexico’s “engraver to the people”
whose artwork, along with the drawings of muralist José Clemente Orozco,
influenced Covarrubias’s early work.
The case also includes a photograph of Rose Rolanda, whom
Covarrubias married in 1930, and portraits of other individuals who helped
open new doors in the publishing world for the young artist. These included
celebrity photographer and collector Nicholas Muray, the photographer and
novelist Carl Van Vechten, and the editor of Vanity Fair, Frank
Crowninshield. It was Crowninshield who first introduced Covarrubias to
Vanity Fair’s readers in a page titled “The Pleasant Art of Caricature.”
Covarrubias’s timing was perfect. He had literally arrived in the midst of
New York’s modernist cultural revolution and the rising tide of the
caricature vogue.
[1]
Unidentified photographer
Antonio Vanegas Arroyo (Mexican, 1852-1917), not dated
Reproduced from Mexican Folkways, July-September 1928
[2]
José Guadalupe Posada (Mexican, 1852-1913)
La calavera del editor popular Antonio Vanegas Arroyo, not dated
Broadside
[4]
José Guadalupe Posada
Mexican President Porfirio Díaz (1830-1915), ca. 1897
Printed illustration
[3&5]
Mexican Folkways
Magazine article featuring José Guadalupe Posada
with color reproduction of the cover, July-September 1928
The magazine’s contributors included, among others, the editor Frances
Toor, the art editor Diego Rivera, and contributing editors Tato Nacho, Tina
Modotti, and Miguel Covarrubias.
[6]
Miguel Covarrubias
José Juan Tablada (Mexican, 1871-1945), ca. 1923
Printed illustration
Published in Shadowland, April, 1923
[7]
Miguel Covarrubias
Javier Algara (Mexican, dates unknown)
Printed illustration
Published in The Prince of Wales and Other Famous Americans (Knopf,
1925)
[8]
Nickolas Muray (American, b. Hungary, 1892-1965)
Miguel Covarrubias, ca. 1925
Photograph
[9]
Miguel Covarrubias
Self-Caricature, ca. 1925
Printed illustration
Published in The Prince of Wales and Other Famous Americans (Knopf,
1925)
[10]
Miguel Covarrubias
Rose Rolanda (American, 1895-1970), ca. 1925
Printed illustration
Published in The Prince of Wales and Other Famous Americans (Knopf,
1925)
[11]
Nickolas Muray (American, b. Hungary, 1892-1965)
“Rose Rolanda, Personifying a pleasant smoke in the new and highly
popular ‘Music Box Revue’”
Reproduced from Shadowland, September 1922
The production of Irving Berlin’s “Music Box Review” cost an unheard of
one million dollars at the time but the show’s tour proved profitable. Miguel
and Rose married in April 1930.
[12]
Nickolas Muray (American, b. Hungary, 1892-1965)
Miguel Covarrubias and Vanity Fair Editor Frank Crowninshield
(American, 1872-1947), ca. 1937
Reproduction courtesy of George Eastman House
[13]
Nickolas Muray (American, b. Hungary, 1892-1965)
Carl Van Vechten (American, 1880-1964), not dated
Reproduction courtesy of George Eastman House
[14]
Miguel Covarrubias
“The Pleasant Art of Caricature”
Printed illustration
Published in Vanity Fair, January 1924
[Table Case #2]
Introductory text
Form and Fashion:
The Evolving Art of Celebrity Caricature (1914-1927)
Of late years, and especially since the war, America has shown a
tremendous increase of interest in caricature.
––Willard Huntington Wright, art critic, 1922
At the service of the press and popular media, celebrity caricature was
well in vogue by the 1920s and permeated the modern worlds of fashion,
theater and the arts. Trendsetting magazines such as Vanity Fair and
Shadowland served as monthly forums to explore the evolution of modern
society as well as the art of caricature, often with an international viewpoint.
As a fluid and entertaining art form, celebrity caricature helped publishers
successfully bridge the gap between high art and mass entertainment.
In this case are two group portraits by Ralph Barton, one of Vanity
Fair’s leading caricaturists, and Miguel Covarrubias, a Barton protégé of the
time. Their caricatures provide entertaining explorations of Hollywood’s
celebrity phenomenon and the contrasts between New York’s urban
lifestyles. Modernism’s reductive impulse had lead to astounding
innovations of the art form earlier in the century as seen in Marius de
Zayas’s “absolute” caricature of photographer Alfred Stieglitz. In a much
lighter vein, Vanity Fair regular, Eduardo Garcia Benito’s drawings of the
“Seven Deadly Sins” elegantly reduce expressions of human morality to
their calligraphic essence.
[15]
Ralph Barton (American, 1891-1931)
“A Tuesday Night at the Cocoanut Grove in Los Angeles as Imagined by
Noted American Artist, Ralph Barton.”
Printed illustration
Published in Vanity Fair, June 1927
[16]
Miguel Covarrubias
Ralph Barton (American, 1891-1931)
Printed illustration, ca. 1925
[17]
Miguel Covarrubias
The Horrors of Fifth Avenue Society—At Both Ends, ca. 1925
Ink and wash on paper
Published in Vanity Fair, May 1925
[18]
Miguel Covarrubias
“The Horrors of Fifth Avenue Society—At Both Ends,” ca. 1925
Printed illustration
Published in Vanity Fair, May 1925
[19]
Willard Huntington Wright (American, 1888-1939)
“The Exacting Art of Caricature”
Published in Shadowland, September 1922
[20]
Eduardo García Benito (Spanish, b. 1891)
“The Seven Deadly Sins”
Printed illustration
Published in Vanity Fair, July 1924
[21]
Marius de Zayas (Mexican, 1880-1961)
Alfred Stieglitz (American, 1864-1946), 1914
Photogravure
Published in Camera Work, April 1914
[22]
Edward Steichen (American, 1879-1973)
Alfred Stieglitz at 291, 1915
Photographic Reproduction
[Table Case #3]
Introductory text
Negro Drawings and the Harlem Renaissance (1924-1929)
Miguel’s contribution to the Harlem Renaissance is justifiably arguable.
While he intentionally challenged old stereotypes, he unintentionally begat
new ones. Nevertheless, his work is significant for documenting the
emergence of the new spirit that rose out of Harlem in the twenties, a spirit
that he understood and frankly admired and wanted to learn more about.
––Adriana Williams, Covarrubias biographer,
1994
In 1924, Vanity Fair began publishing Covarrubias’s studies of black cabaret
entertainers inspired by his many late evening excursions to Harlem. Friend
and mentor, Carl Van Vechten who is credited for bringing popular attention
to Harlem’s groundbreaking cultural scene, helped connect the young artist
with African-American authors and their publishers. Covarrubias secured a
number of commissions for significant book illustrations, including Alain
Locke’s The New Negro (1925), W. C. Handy’s Blues: An Anthology (1926),
and Langston Hughes’s first book of verse, The Weary Blues (1926).
Covarrubias’s own book, Negro Drawings, a compilation of new and
previously published drawings in Vanity Fair, appeared in 1927.
[23]
Miguel Covarrubias
Untitled [Nine Dancing Figures], undated
Ink on paper
[24]
Miguel Covarrubias, Negro Drawings with a preface by Ralph Barton and
an introduction by Frank Crowninshield (New York: Knopf, 1927)
[25]
Langston Hughes, The Weary Blues with an introduction by Carl Van
Vechten and illustrations by Miguel Covarrubias (New York: Knopf, 1926)
[26 MAY BE REPLACED BY #98, LANGSTON HUGHES’ BOOK
DEPENDING ON SPACE IN THE CASE]
Miguel Covarrubias, The Prince of Wales and Other Famous Americans
(New York: Knopf, 1925)
Inscribed to Spud Johnson by Miguel Covarrubias and Carl Van Vechten
with a printed illustration of Van Vechten’s caricature by Covarrubias.
[27]
W. C. Handy, Blues: An Anthology (New York: Albert & Charles Boni,
1926)
With an introduction and notes by Abbe Niles and eight illustrations by
Miguel Covarrubias
[28]
Miguel Covarrubias
Untitled [Harlem Dandy], not dated
Litho crayon on paper
[29]
Miguel Covarrubias
“Enter, The New Negro, a Distinctive Type Recently Created by the
Coloured Cabaret Belt in New York”
Printed illustration
Published in Vanity Fair, December 1924
[98]
Langston Hughes, The Weary Blues (New York: Knopf, 1926)
Illustrated by Miguel Covarrubias
[Table Case #4]
Introductory text
African Origins (1928-1938)
I am taking advantage of the Colonial Exposition in Paris this summer to
see the actual people of this part of Africa and see their dances, etc. In any
case by the end of April I expect Batouala will be ready. . . . Since the
atmosphere of Paris is quite African I think it will be an excellent place to
finish the drawings.
—Miguel Covarrubias to George Macy, Colombo, Ceylon, 27 March
[1931]
By 1928, Miguel Covarrubias was an established book illustrator. He
relished the opportunities provided by publishers like George Macy of the
Limited Editions Club and Albert and Charles Boni to integrate his interest
in primitive and exotic cultures into book illustrations. For example,
according to biographer Adrianna Williams, the republication of the classic
1854 volume, Adventures of an African Slaver, “provided Miguel the
opportunity to examine African history and expand his knowledge of
African arts and customs.” Covarrubias provided almost 100 illustrations in
black and white and color for René Maran’s controversial 1921 Prix
Goncourt winner, Batouala, the first great novel about colonial Africa by a
Black French writer. As folklore, Mules and Men offers rare insight into a
people and a way of life, and Miguel’s stark black and white illustrations
compliment Zora Neale Hurston’s exploration of her roots in the American
South. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s classic abolitionist work, Uncle Tom’s
Cabin, was the last book he illustrated on African American life.
Covarrubias coveted this illustrative commission as his godfather had
exclaimed that he was born for the sole purpose of illustrating Stowe’s
classic.
[30]
René Maran, Batouala: A Novel by (New York: The Limited Editions Club,
1932)
With an introduction by Alvah C. Bessie and illustrations by Miguel
Covarrubias
[31]
Miguel Covarrubias
Untitled [Bird with Snake], not dated
Ink on paper
Published in Batouala (The Limited Editions Club, 1932)
[32]
Miguel Covarrubias
Untitled [Standing African female], not dated
Ink on paper
[33]
Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin (New York: The Limited
Editions Club, 1938). One of 15 presentation copies numbered and signed by
the artist.
With an introduction by Raymond Weaver and sixteen lithographs by
Miguel Covarrubias
[34]
Zora Neale Hurston, Mules and Men (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1935)
With an introduction by Franz Boas and ten illustrations by Miguel
Covarrubias
[35]
Theodore Canot, Adventures of an African Slaver (New York: Albert and
Charles Boni, 1928)
With an introduction by Malcolm Cowley and nine illustrations by Miguel
Covarrubias
[Table Case #5]
Introductory text
South by South Pacific (1935-1940)
Covarrubias is an ethnologist and anthropologist, subtle and sensitive to the
unrecorded past of unknown peoples, with a humorous, penetrating
perspicacity of contemporaneous life, and a wide knowledge of the
governmental forms and trade relations, of the moving forces, that bind
peoples together or sever their relations.
—Ray Lyman Wilbur, President of Pacific House, 1940
Covarrubias’s second project with the Limited Editions Club, Herman
Melville’s Typee, was published in 1935. He had ordered one hundred sheets
of tapa from Bali—an unwoven cloth made from the bark of the paper
mulberry tree—to bind copies of Typee for George Macy’s First Edition
subscribers. In this case Macy and Covarrubias discuss payment for the tapa
in two letters from 1937. Another Covarrubias-illustrated book was released
in 1936: Heritage Press’s edition of W. H. Hudson’s Green Mansions: A
Romance of the Tropical Forest. Originally published in 1904, the novel is
set in a Venezuelan rainforest.
During the latter half of the 1930s, Miguel and his wife Rose traded
Manhattan for Mexico where they acquired the Covarrubias family’s country
home in Tizapán, just outside Mexico City. Island of Bali was published in
1937 and that same year Covarrubias was hired to create six mural maps of
the Pacific Rim for the 1939 world’s fair on Treasure Island in San
Francisco. Themed “The Pageant of the Pacific,” Covarrubias conceived of
his huge Pacific-centered maps as anthropological primers.
[36A–B]
Miguel Covarrubias, Native Means of Transportation, Pacific Area (Pacific
House, 1939)
This portfolio of six Pacific mural reproductions published in conjunction
with the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition in San Francisco, was
derived from Covarrubias’s murals that were up to 24 feet long. It includes
maps based on the peoples, economies, transportation, art, and native flora
and fauna of the Pacific.
[37A–B]
Herman Melville, Typee: A Romance of the South Seas (New York: The
Limited Editions Club, 1935). Copy 1278 of 1500 copies signed by the
artist.
With an introduction by Raymond Weaver and illustrations by Miguel
Covarrubias
[38]
W.H. Hudson, Green Mansions: A Romance of the Tropical Forest (New
York: The Heritage Press, 1936)
With illustrations by Miguel Covarrubias
[39]
Miguel Covarrubias
Making Tapa, ca. 1935
Watercolor on paper
Published in Typee (The Limited Editions Club, 1935)
[40A–B]
Letter from George Macy to Miguel Covarrubias, 7 April 1937
Letter from Miguel Covarrubias to George Macy, 9 April 1937
These letters document a humorous exchange between the artist and his
publisher George Macy, Director of The Limited Editions Club in New
York. In response to Macy’s billing “for some sheets of tapa [paper],” which
amounts to pennies, Covarrubias reimburses the Director with a “rather
worn” Mexican coin whose “intrinsic value is about the same as . . . shiny
American coins.”
[41]
Unidentified photographer
Miguel Covarrubias, Rose Rolanda, and unidentified man standing in front
of the mural, The Economy of the Pacific, 1938
Color photograph
[Table Case # 6]
Introductory text
Island of Bali (1930-1937)
The only aim of this book [. . .] is to collect in one volume all that could be
obtained from personal experience by an unscientific artist, of a living
culture that is doomed to disappear under the merciless onslaught of
modern commercialism and standardization.
––Miguel Covarrubias, Island of Bali, 1937
Inspired by Gregor Krause’s book Bali, the Covarrubiases
honeymooned on the island in 1930. En route, Miguel studied Malay and
later Balinese in order to better communicate with the island’s inhabitants.
Miguel and Rose’s nine-month island experience was memorable, indeed
Miguel returned to write a book about the island, its people and their culture.
A Guggenheim Fellowship allowed them both to return to Bali in 1933.
While Miguel sketched and made notes, Rose took hundreds of supporting
photographs documenting Balinese life and culture.
Island of Bali, published in 1937, was an instant bestseller and
received critical acclaim. A special issue of Theatre Arts Monthly, “The
Theatre in Bali,” featured an illustrated excerpt from Island of Bali.
[42]
Letter from Miguel Covarrubias to Alfred Knopf (American, 1892–1984),
23 October 1935.
In this letter to Alfred Knopf, Covarrubias outlines his vision for Island of
Bali, a book which he insists should be well-illustrated and “interesting
enough for an ordinary reader.”
[43]
Rose Covarrubias (American, 1895–1970)
Miguel Covarrubias, not dated
Photograph
Miguel and Rose steamed to Bali aboard the Cingalese Prince in 1930 and
again in 1933.
[44]
Miguel Covarrubias
Untitled [Female nude sitting in water], ca. 1937
Ink on paper
Published on the cover of Island of Bali (Knopf, 1937)
[45 & 48]
Miguel Covarrubias
Movements of the Baris, ca. 1937
Ink and wash on paper
Published in Island of Bali (Knopf, 1937)
Both Miguel and Rose Covarrubias took a particular interest in Balinese
dance forms such as the Baris. Performed by young Balinese men and
accompanied by music, the Baris is a ritualized war dance that combines
elaborate costumes with flowers and weapons.
[46]
Miguel Covarrubias, Island of Bali (New York: Knopf, 1937)
The book includes an introduction and over one hundred illustrations by
Miguel Covarrubias and an album of photographs by Rose Covarrubias.
[47]
Letter from Margaret Mead (American, 1901–1978) to B. B. Knudsen, staff,
Theatre Arts Monthly, 2 May 1937
A copy of Island of Bali made its way to anthropologist Margaret Mead,
then conducting fieldwork in a remote Balinese village. In a letter to the
magazine’s manager, Mead notes that the village’s inhabitants,
unaccustomed to photography, respond immediately to Covarrubias’s
caricatures of native dance.
[49]
Miguel Covarrubias
Four promotional illustrations, ca. 1937
Printed illustrations
Published in Island of Bali (Knopf, 1937)
[Table Case #7]
Introductory text
All Men Are Brothers (1943-1948)
In 1943, George Macy enlisted Covarrubias to illustrate another of his
Limited Editions Club projects, All Men Are Brothers, Pearl S. Buck’s 1933
translation of the fourteenth-century Chinese novel Shih Hu Chuan. By late
1944 however, well past Macy’s intended release date, Covarrubias had not
finished the promised illustrations. After making some progress by 1945,
Covarrubias rejected his first illustrations. It was not until 1947 that he
submitted a new set.
Sending Covarrubias the second set of plates in 1947, Macy wrote:
Please be a good little boy now, and color these proofs the
minute you get them, and return the colored set and a corrected set to
me. I am enclosing a special envelope for that purpose, with an
addressed label; I am unable to acquire the Mexican stamps, or I
would put the stamps on for you, too!
If this sarcasm does not amuse you, possibly you will be moved
by the most violent threat I can think of. This is, if you do not let me
have the colored proofs promptly, I will have the plates colored by
somebody else and published over your name.
Macy’s sarcasm seems to have had its intended effect, as Covarrubias
promptly colored and returned the plates. The book was published in early
1948. In his introduction, Lin Yu Tang, Chinese author and friend of
Covarrubias, calls Shih Hu Chuan one the influential classics of Chinese
fiction. The novel is based on a cycle of stories concerning a band of
Liangshanpo outlaws in the early twelfth-century. Covarrubias, who visited
China in the 1930s, entertained a lifelong interest in Chinese culture and
politics; Chinese was one of several languages he learned to speak.
[50–51]
Shih Hu Chuan [All Men Are Brothers], 2 volumes, (New York: The
Limited Editions Club, 1948). Copy 299 of 1500 numbered copies signed by
Covarrubias.
Translated by Pearl S. Buck with illustrations by Miguel Covarrubias
[55]
Miguel Covarrubias
The Robbers’ Lair
Original ink drawing, ca. 1947-48
Published in All Men Are Brothers (The Limited Editions Club, 1948)
[54 & 56]
Miguel Covarrubias
The Nine Dragoned Shih Chin
Color proof and original ink drawing
Published in All Men Are Brothers (The Limited Editions Club, 1948)
[53 & 52]
Miguel Covarrubias
Ten Foot Green Snake
Color proof and original ink drawing
Published in All Men Are Brothers (The Limited Editions Club, 1948)
[Table Case #8]
Introductory text
A Certain Coalescence (1940-1957)
I am doing a lot more things than I expected to. My hobbies, anthropology
and archaeology, have become my art, my work.
––Miguel Covarrubias, 1943
Covarrubias was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship to write on the
Isthmus of Tehauntepec in 1940. Mexico South, his second major book,
opened the door to future publications that focused on the Indian Arts of the
Americas. That same year, his Pageant of the Pacific portfolio of mural
maps was published and he helped organize the monumental exhibition,
Twenty Centuries of Mexican Art, at the Museum of Modern Art in New
York. He curated the Modern Art section and wrote an essay on it for the
exhibition’s accompanying book.
Ongoing demand for his writing and book illustration invariably
competed with his increased responsibilities as an arts educator and
administrator in Mexico during the 1950s. Forever missing deadlines,
Covarrubias aggravated many publishers including Alfred Knopf. However,
the artist was always inventive with his time, finding ways to weave his
work from project to project as seen in his Dallas, Texas mural Genesis, the
Gift of Life (1954) that includes recycled set designs from Carlos Chávez’s
ballet, Los cuatro soles, performed in 1951 in Mexico City. The central
concept for the set design and mural is based on the four elements: water,
earth, fire and air (sky).
[92]
Twenty Centuries of Mexican Art (New York: Museum of Modern Art,
1940)
An exhibition catalogue published by the Museum of Modern Art and the
Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia de México.
[93]
Unidentified author, “Covarrubias, Artist, Now Anthropologist” (The New
York Times, 9 August 1943)
[91]
Memorandum from Herbert Weinstock to Alfred and Blanche Knopf, 17
July 1951
[89]
Note from Alfred Knopf to Herbert Weinstock, 8 November 1954
[90]
Letter from Herbert Weinstock to Miguel Covarrubias, 10 November 1954
[88]
Nickolas Muray (American, b. Hungary, 1892-1965)
Miguel Covarrubias, Nickolas Muray and William Spratling, ca. 1950s
Photograph
[77]
Miguel Covarrubias
Set design for Carlos Chávez’s ballet Los cuatro soles (The Four Suns), ca.
1951
Gouache on paper
[78–84]
(left and right of original set design)
Miguel Covarrubias
Costume and set designs for Los cuatro soles, ca. 1951
Printed illustrations
Published in Miguel Covarrubias: Homenaje (Mexico City: CCAC, 1987)
[85]
Miguel Covarrubias
Genesis, the Gift of Life, 1954
Glass mosaic mural, Venetian glass technique (144 H. x 720 inches L.)
City of Dallas, Gift of Peter and Waldo Stewart and the Stewart Company,
1992
This mural is on permanent display at the Dallas Museum of Art.
[86–87]
Program and program cover for the opening presentation on 14 January
1955, of Miguel Covarrubias’s mural Genesis, the Gift of Life commissioned
by the Stewart Company, Central Expressway, Dallas Texas.
[Case #9 (tall floor case)]
This will be installed inside the case between the top and middle
shelves.]
Signature Books (1937-1957)
Miguel’s formula is that of writing the most extended captions for pictures
ever imagined. By this I do not mean that the text itself lacks interest. I do
mean that text and pictures are one. . . . The amazing thing about it is that it
builds up, adds up, rises, to a complete, solidly built whole. . . . Miguel’s
manner of speaking like an authority in all of these fields is derived . . . from
his having made himself an authority in them all.
—Herbert Weinstock to Alfred Knopf, 1945
Using the framework of The Island of Bali (1937), Covarrubias
compiled the material for Mexico South (1946) on his frequent journeys to
Tehuantepec, Mexico. Immersed in archaeological and cultural explorations,
Covarrubias documents the experience in generously illustrated text
including art, drawings and photography. The result is an encyclopedic,
authoritative book on the people and history of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec.
In 1949, Covarrubias proposed an even grander project to Alfred
Knopf: three volumes covering the geography, ethnology, anthropology,
archaeology, history, economics, plastic arts, literature, music, folklore,
religion, food, drink, and more of the indigenous peoples of the continents of
North and South America. Volume I was to be a general hypothesis of
Indian art history and a handbook of Indian art cultures from the Arctic Sea
to the Rio Grande; Volume II would cover the art of Indians from the Rio
Grande to the border between Panama and Costa Rica; and Volume III
would contain the Indian art of Panama and all of South America.
These books became the summation and synthesis of the artist’s life
work. Volume I, The Eagle, the Jaguar, and the Serpent, was completed in
1954 and was well received; the second volume, Indian Art of Mexico and
Central America, appeared posthumously just after Covarrubias’s death on
Februray 5, 1957. The third volume was never completed. Covarrubias’
unbounded vision ignores all modern geo-political divisions separating the
modern Americas. In a sense, his signature books reunite the continent’s rich
multicultural heritage.
[57–58]
Miguel Covarrubias, Island of Bali (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1937)
[59–60]
Miguel Covarrubias, Indian Art of Mexico and Central America (New York:
Alfred A. Knopf, 1957)
[61–62]
Miguel Covarrubias, The Eagle, the Jaguar, and the Serpent: Indian Art of
the Americas (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1954)
[63–64]
Miguel Covarrubias, Mexico South: The Isthmus of Tehuantepec (New
York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1946)
[65]
Miguel Covarrubias
Untitled [Montezuma’s tax gatherer with slave], ca. 1942
Watercolor and ink on paper
Published in The Discovery and Conquest of Mexico (The Limited Editions
Club, 1942)
[66]
Miguel Covarrubias
Untitled [Group of Aztec men holding Spanish soldier for sacrifice], ca.
1942
Ink and crayon on paper
Published in The Discovery and Conquest of Mexico (The Limited Editions
Club, 1942)
[67]
Bernal Díaz del Castillo, The Discovery and Conquest of Mexico, 1517-1521
(New York: The Limited Editions Club, 1942)
Edited and with an Introduction by Harry Block and illustrations by Miguel
Covarrubias. Printed in the style of an ancient Spanish chronicle in Mexico
City by Rafael Loera y Chávez, this is copy 228 signed by the printer,
illustrator, and editor.
[68]
William H. Prescott, A History of The Conquest of Mexico (New York: The
Heritage Press, 1949), with illustrations by Miguel Covarrubias.
[69]
Miguel Covarrubias
Untitled [Spanish soldier and Aztec warrior in battle], ca. 1942
Watercolor and ink on paper
Published in The Discovery and Conquest of Mexico (The Limited Editions
Club, 1942)
[70]
Miguel Covarrubias
Untitled [Two Spanish soldiers—one with raised branding iron—restraining
half-nude kneeling woman], ca. 1942
Watercolor and ink on paper
Unpublished drawing for Bernal Díaz del Castillo’s
The Discovery and Conquest of Mexico (Limited Editions Club, 1942)
[Wall case #1]
Introductory text
The Prince of Wales and Other Famous Americans
From the beginning I was amazed at his ability to size up a person on a
blank sheet of paper at once: there was a certain clairvoyance in this.
––Carl Van Vechten, Preface, 1925
Within two years of Miguel Covarrubias’s arrival in New York City,
Alfred Knopf published The Prince of Wales and Other Famous Americans.
This little volume of sixty-six notable personalities of the arts and
entertainment worlds literally launched Covarrubias’s career. Many of the
drawings for this book originally appeared in Vanity Fair magazine.
Included in this case is a legend identifying Covarrubias’s caricatured
subjects reproduced on the wall above.
At the time of the book’s release, Edward VIII, the Prince of Wales,
was considered one of the western world’s most eligible bachelors. In 1936,
he became the first English monarch to abdicate the throne (after only 325
days) as a result of great contention with the Queen and Parliament over his
intent to marry an American women and divorcee. In 1937 he married
Wallis Warfield Simpson and was named Duke of Windsor.
[74]
Miguel Covarrubias, The Prince of Wales and Other Famous Americans
(New York: Knopf, 1925), with a Preface by Carl Van Vechten.
[75-76 THESE MAY NEED TO BE CUT FOR LACK OF SPACE
BECAUSE OF LEGEND ADDITION?]
Letter from Miguel Covarrubias to Alfred Knopf, 14 May 1924
The letter includes Covarrubias’s working checklists of his book’s subjects.
[Wall case #2]
Introductory text
Parody and Caricature: Corey Ford and Miguel Covarrubias
John Riddell? ‘Tis a strange name. It’s our custom to pronounce the name
two ways. One to rhyme with “fiddle” or “diddle,” and the other by
stressing the last syllable so as to rhyme wit “smell” or “what and the hell.”
Not that it makes much difference, Ma’am, so long as the name is fictitious,
as they say.
—Meaning No Offense, 1928
Corey Ford (American, 1902-1969) reviewed books for Vanity Fair in
the 1920s and ‘30s and was a member of New York City’s Smart Set. Under
the pseudonym of John Riddell, Ford wrote “parody criticism,” sharp-witted
reviews of leading best sellers and authors. He adopted their language and
style to satirize the texts and their authors: “Here in print he would brazenly
express his regard for each book in turn, by the simple and flattering device
of aping the author’s very style and manner of speech. . . . nothing more or
less than a fawning series of imitations of the past year’s Best Sellers” (In
the Worst Possible Taste, xviii).
Ford’s reviews were naturally paired with Miguel Covarrubias’s
caricatures: what Ford did with the pen, Covarrubias achieved with the
brush. The combination of literary and artistic slapstick lampooned the
popular literati, high and low art, popular culture and the avant-garde. Their
collaboration continued for several years, resulting in three books and the
scandalous parodies, Impossible Interviews, published in Vanity Fair in the
1930s.
[73]
John Riddell, Meaning No Offense (New York: The John Day Co., 1928)
Open to the frontispiece, “Bridge of San Thornton Wilder,” and title page,
“Trader Riddell.”
With nine illustrations by Miguel Covarrubias, this book was dedicated to
Frank Crowninshield, the editor of Vanity Fair.
[71]
John Riddell, The John Riddell Murder Case: A Philo Vance Parody (New
York and London: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1930), with twelve illustrations
by Miguel Covarrubias.
Open to the frontispiece: Riddell as “S. S. Van Dine,” author of “Murder
Case” mysteries featuring Philo Vance.
[72]
John Riddell, In the Worst Possible Taste (New York and London: Charles
Scribner’s Sons, 1932), with fourteen illustrations by Miguel Covarrubias.
Open to the frontispiece: Riddell hiding behind a George Bernard Shaw
mask with a drawing of Mae West. Other caricatures include Charles G. and
Kathleen Norris, Herbert Clark Hoover, Admiral Byrd, and H. G. Wells,
among others. The book was dedicated to Rose and Miguel Covarrubias.
[Wall case #3]
Introductory text
Frida Kahlo and the Covarrubias Circle
Frida Kahlo had an intimate relationship with Covarrubias’s friend
Nickolas Muray, made visibly evident by her drawing Diego y Yo, a selfportrait with her husband Diego Rivera. Created just months after her
marriage to Rivera in 1929 but later inscribed in ink "For Nick with love,"
this drawing is an ironic memento honoring both her love affair and her
marriage. Muray may have acquired the drawing around the time of Kahlo’s
divorce in 1939 and re-marriage to Rivera in 1940, the same year Kahlo
painted Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird, which is also
in the Muray collection. Kahlo drew Diego y Yo in San Francisco when
Rivera’s retrospective exhibition was on view at the California Palace of the
Legion of Honor in 1929. That same year Rivera began work on his Allegory
of California mural painted in the Pacific Stock Exchange building, now the
San Francisco City Club.
Frida Kahlo included a playful caricature of herself in a letter to Lady
Christina Hastings, the Countess of Huntingdon. Her husband, Jack
Hastings, the 15th Earl of Huntingdon, studied with Diego Rivera in the
1930s and would become an important British muralist. The New York
exhibition Kahlo mentions in the letter is Rivera’s large retrospective at the
newly opened Museum of Modern Art.
[94]
Frida Kahlo (Mexican, 1907-1954)
Diego y Yo (Diego and Me), 1930
Charcoal, graphite, and ink on paper
[95-96]
Letter and note from Frida Kahlo to Lady Christina Hastings, the Countess
of Huntingdon (Italian, d. 1953), September 1931.
[97]
Frida Kahlo (Mexican, 1907-1954)
Portrait of Lady Hastings, the Countess of Huntingdon, 1931
Printed illustration
Reproduced from Hayden Herrera, Frida, a biography of Frida Kahlo, 1983
Covarrubias Wall labels Master (Framed items)
Art 01 (Pioneers)
“Spy” [Sir Leslie Ward], (British, 1851-1922)
Mark Twain (1835-1910), ca. 1908
Gouache and watercolor on board
Cartoonist Leslie Ward contributed portraits to the British Vanity Fair under
the pseudonym “Spy” from 1873 until just before World War I when the
paper in its old form ceased to exist. During his lifetime he is credited with
producing over 2,000 likenesses of well-known figures. Prints of his
character portraits have become highly collectable.
Art 02 (Pioneers)
Max Beerbohm (British, 1872-1956)
Arthur Wing Pinero (1855-1934)
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), 1906
Pencil, ink, and wash on paper
Max Beerbohm is credited with being one of the great caricaturists of early
twentieth-century British personalities. The playwright George Bernard
Shaw called him “the incomparable.” His first published drawings appeared
in The Strand Magazine in 1892. As an essayist and caricaturist that knew
practically everyone in literary and theatrical circles, Beerbohm was a
central figure in turn-of-the-century London society. He was a contributor to
the famous Yellow Book and in 1898 succeeded Shaw as drama critic for the
Saturday Review.
Art 03 (Pioneers)
Max Beerbohm (British, 1872-1956)
Mark Twain (1835-1910), 1908
Pencil, ink, and wash on paper
Art 04 (Pioneers)
Max Beerbohm (British, 1872-1956)
Willie and Oscar Wilde: Oscar and Willie Wilde, 1926
Watercolor and ink on paper mounted on board
The first writer Beerbohm mocked with a merciful (and sometimes not so
merciful) humor was his mentor, Oscar Wilde (1854-1900). Wilde served
not only as a model for Beerbohm but also as an object of criticism and
satire. Journalist Willie Wilde’s (1852-1899) relationship with his brother,
Oscar, the celebrated playwright, was antagonistic, and yet Beerbohm saw
them as mirror images of each other. In a letter to the painter Will
Rothenstein, Beerbohm writes: “...did I tell you that I saw a good deal of
[Oscar’s] brother Willie at Broad stairs? Quell monster! Dark, oily, suspect
yet awfully like Oscar: he has Oscar’s coy, carnal smile & fatuous giggle &
not a little of Oscar's esprit. But he is awful—a veritable tragedy of familylikeness.”
Art 05 (Pioneers)
Carlo de Fornaro (Swiss-Italian, 1871-1949)
William Clyde Fitch (1865-1909), 1902
Ink on paper
Published in the New York Telegraph, 9 November 1902
Clyde Fitch was an American playwright whose popularity spanned both
sides of the Atlantic. Fitch’s plays include Nathan Hale (1898), The
Climbers (1901), The Girl with the Green Eyes (1902), The Truth (1907),
and The City (1909).
Art 06 (Pioneers)
Carlo de Fornaro (Swiss-Italian, 1871-1949)
Daniel Frohman (1851-1940), ca. 1900
Ink on paper
Published in the New York Telegraph
Daniel Frohman, along with his brother Charles, was a leading American
theatrical producer.
Art 07 (Peers)
Marius de Zayas (Mexican, 1880-1961)
L’Accoucheur d’Idées (The Deliverer of Ideas), ca. 1912
Photogravure
Published in Camera Work no. 39, July 1912
Artist, writer on African and Cubist Art, gallery proprietor and publisher,
Marius de Zayas made significant contributions to modernist theory and the
art of caricature. His friend, noted photographer Alfred Stieglitz, admired his
dark but luminous charcoal drawings. De Zayas exhibited his work at
Stieglitz’s 291 Gallery and published a magazine with gallery artists titled
291, a radical offshoot of Stieglitz’s earlier Camera Work.
Art 08 (Peers)
Marius de Zayas (Mexican, 1880-1961)
Cora Urquhart Brown-Potter (1857-1936), ca. 1908
Photogravure
Published in Camera Work no. 29, January 1910
A New Orleans-born stage actress, Cora Urquhart Brown-Potter was one of
the first society women in America to embark on an acting career. Though
she divorced to pursue her new career, she retained her husband’s name and
was popularly known as “Mrs. Brown-Potter.” The ethereal lighting in this
charcoal drawing heightens the drama and staged effect.
Art 09 (A-F ) (Peers)
Marius de Zayas (Mexican, 1880-1961)
(top: left to right)
Alfred Stieglitz (1864–1946), Mrs. Eugene Meyer, Jr. (1887–1970), Two
Friends
(bottom: left to right)
Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919), Paul B. Haviland (1880–1950), Francis
Picabia (1874–1953)
Photographic reproductions
Published in Camera Work no. 46, April 1914
Marius de Zayas developed a complex theory of abstraction that he called
“absolute caricature,” evolving from his studies of African and Pacific island
cultures and the cubist aesthetics of Pablo Picasso whom he met in Paris.
Combining geometric shapes and mathematical formulas, De Zayas’s
abstract caricatures were radical experiments in an attempt to create a new
form of symbolic portraiture.
Art 10 (Peers)
Al Frueh (American, 1880-1968)
John Drew (1853-1927), 1915
Linocut
Published in Stage Folk (Lieber and Lewis, 1922)
In 1922, Al Frueh published Stage Folk, a portfolio of thirty-seven linocut
caricatures of work done since 1907. His collection of refined portraits is a
blend of representational and abstract caricature. Popular turn-of-the-century
American stage actor John Drew was best known for his Shakespearean and
light-comedy roles. His features, and performances, seemed carved in stone,
as Frueh suggests in this graphic ode to Drew’s celebrity.
Art 11 (Peers)
Al Frueh (American, 1880-1968)
Joseph Weber and Lew Fields (1867-1942; 1867-1941), ca. 1912
Linocut
Published in Stage Folk (Lieber and Lewis, 1922)
Joe Weber and Lew Fields were a famous American comedy team who
served as a model for such later comic duos as Abbott and Costello. Frueh’s
depiction of their loud checked clothes and low-crown derbies captures
Fields as the tall aggressor, while Weber was short and the brunt of the
jokes. They were noted for their slapstick antics, their dialect jokes, and their
burlesques of popular plays. They opened and managed Weber and Fields
Music Hall on Broadway from 1896 until their split in 1904.
Art 12 (Peers)
Al Frueh (American, 1880-1968)
George M. Cohan (1878-1942), ca. 1911
Linocut
Published in Stage Folk (Lieber and Lewis, 1922)
George Michael Cohan, American actor, popular songwriter, playwright,
and producer of musical comedies, became famous as the “Yankee Doodle
Dandy.” His best known songs include “You’re a Grand Old Flag,” “Give
My Regards to Broadway,” and “Over There.” Of Frueh’s minimalist
drawing, Carlo de Fornaro wrote in Arts and Decoration: “Nothing remains
but the angle of the hat, the swing of the cane, the hand in the pocket, and
the Cohan walk. But the portrait is unmistakable!”
Art 13 (Peers)
Ralph Barton (American, 1891-1931)
To Splendid Fannie Hurst, not dated
Ink on paper
Fannie Hurst (1889–1968) was a leading popular American novelist,
screenwriter, and dramatist. Her name on the cover of a magazine was
enough to sell out an issue. She wrote of immigrants and shop-girls, love,
drama, and trauma, and while the title “World's Highest-Paid Short-Story
Writer” attached itself to her name, she used her celebrity to promote an
agenda that included racial equality and women’s rights.
Art 14 (Peers)
Eva Herrmann (American, 1907-1978)
Thomas Beer (1889-1940), not dated
Colored pencil on paper
Published in On Parade: Caricatures (Coward-McCann, 1929)
Thomas Beer wrote short stories for the Saturday Evening Post between
1917 and 1936. Though born to an upper-class family and a graduate of Yale
University and Columbia Law School, the subjects of Beer’s fiction were
often everyday people of the American heartland.
Art 15 (Wall L)
Sherril Schell (American, 1877-1964)
Miguel Covarrubias at his drawing table, ca. 1925
Photograph
Art 16 (Wall L)
Beautiful Women Made Ugly––And Made to Like It: From Hollywood
to Broadway, Mexican Miguel Covarrubias Has Poked Fun at
Celebrities In Devastating Caricatures, 1928
Newspaper Mock-up
In the 1920s, modern caricature became a marketing phenomenon for the
mass media-generated celebrity industry. Covarrubias’s drawings helped
promote stage and screen celebrities and they added enormous credibility to
his growing reputation. Turning the definition of beauty on its head, this ad’s
harsh, attention-grabbing headline promotes the new and evolving art form
of caricature as much as the featured artist and his celebrity subjects. The
light commentaries from each star of stage and screen add a sense of levity
to the advertisement and draw further attention to Covarrubias’s amusing
interpretations.
Art 17 (Wall K, NPG, Rotates out with Art #23 after 4mos.)
Miguel Covarrubias
Mae West (1893-1980), ca. 1928
Gouache and ink on paper
Published in the New Yorker, 5 May 1928
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
Personality is the most important thing to an actress’s success… the glitter
that sends your little gleam across the footlights and the orchestra pit into
that big black space where the audience is.
––Mae West
Mae West was whimsical, sexy, irreverent and ahead of her time. She was
an actor, dancer, writer, producer, and director at a time when women rarely
had jobs outside of the home. She was one of the first Hollywood stars to
recognize that sex was—and always would be—at least one arena of power
open to women.
Art 18 (Wall K)
Miguel Covarrubias
Frank Conroy (1890-1964) and Ethel Barrymore (1879-1959) in The
Constant Wife, 1926
Ink and wash with gouache on board
Published in the New Yorker, 1 January 1927
W. Somerset Maugham’s comedy of marital maneuvers opened in New
York on November 29, 1926, starring Ethel Barrymore, the “First Lady of
the American Stage” and for whom the term “glamour girl” was coined, as
Constance. Frank Conroy, who established the Greenwich Village Theatre,
played Kersal. The clever Constance takes her husband’s infidelity in stride
and uses it as a reason to go on a holiday with Kersal, her former suitor.
Barrymore was well suited for her role in a play considered one of
Maugham’s best.
Art 19 (Wall K)
Miguel Covarrubias
Leslie Howard (1893-1943) and Jeanne Eagels (1890-1929) in Her
Cardboard Lover, 1927
Ink and wash on paper
Published in the New Yorker, 7 May 1927
Adapted from Jacques Deval’s French comedy, this play opened on March
21, 1927, at the Empire Theater and starred Jeanne Eagels and Leslie
Howard as a lover hired to keep her from being tempted to return to her
husband. Eagels had hoped to recapture her earlier fame with this play, but
Howard, her young English co-star, overshadowed her performance. The
play was nevertheless a success, running for nineteen weeks.
Art 20 (Wall K)
Miguel Covarrubias
William Beebe (1877-1962), 1928
Ink, wash, and gouache on paper
Published in Vanity Fair, October 1928
Dr. William Beebe was a renowned American zoologist and inventor of the
bathysphere, a deep-sea diving bell. He was the first man to descend to
ocean depths of three thousand feet. Of the exploring scientists, Beebe was
the most literate, writing numerous books on his oceanic adventures.
Art 21 (Wall K)
Miguel Covarrubias
Minnie Maddern Fiske (1865-1932) and Sidney Toler (1874-1947) in Mrs.
Bumpstead–Leigh, 1929
Ink and wash on paper
Published in the New Yorker, 27 April 1929
Harry James Smith’s original production of this comedy opened almost
eighteen years earlier to the day, starring Fiske in the title role as an imposter
who, along with her mother and sister, claims farcical social pretensions.
The revival of the play opened on April 1, 1929, and ran for nine weeks on
Broadway with Toler playing the bumptious Peter Swallow, Mrs.
Bumpstead–Leigh’s former suitor, whose appearance threatens to expose her
pretensions and deceits.
Art 22 (Wall K)
Miguel Covarrubias
George White (1890-1968) and Frances Williams (1863-1959) in George
White’s Scandals, 1929
Ink wash and watercolor on paper
Published in the New Yorker, 14 December 1929
George White produced thirteen Scandals between 1919 and 1936. Their
topical comedy, fast-paced dancing, and musical arrangements made them
better than the typical music revue. A veteran dancer and entertainer, White
spared no expense on his revues and paid a premium for stars like singer
Frances Williams to perform in the 1929 show.
Art 23 (Wall K, REPLACES Art #17, NPG’S MAE WEST LOAN @ 4
MOS)
Miguel Covarrubias
Jim Londos (1897-1975), 1932
Ink and wash on paper
Published in the New Yorker, 5 March 1932
Known as “The Golden Greek,” Londos (born Chris Theophelos) was the
world heavyweight-wrestling champion for more than fifteen years. He lost
only a handful of matches during his career. His athletic ability and good
looks made him a top draw during the Great Depression.
Art 24 (Wall K, REPLACES Art #77, NPG’S VAN VECHTEN LOAN @ 4
MOS)
Miguel Covarrubias
Lily Pons (1904-1976), 1932
Ink on paper
Published in the New Yorker, 16 January 1932
A French-born American operatic soprano, Lily Pons was an overnight
sensation after her Metropolitan Opera debut in 1931. She remained the
principal soprano there until 1961. The elaborate ornamentation and
embellishment of her high-ranging voice entranced audiences in Paris,
London, Buenos Aires, Mexico, and the United States.
Art 25 (Wall K)
Miguel Covarrubias
Impossible Interview No. 10, Senator Smith W. Brookhart (1869-1944) vs.
Marlene Dietrich (1901-1992), 1932
Gouache and ink on board
Published in Vanity Fair, September 1932
A system of voluntary censorship had been in place in Hollywood until the
early 1930s. But when movie attendance fell, sex was reintroduced to the
movies through such seductive stars as Marlene Dietrich. Among
Hollywood’s detractors was Iowa Senator Smith Wildman Brookhart
(Republican), who called for a Senate investigation of the movie industry. A
prohibitionist, Brookhart was described by Time magazine as “a vociferous
champion of radical farm measures.” He lost his Senate reelection bid in
1932 and was henceforth referred to as “Mr. Ex.”
Senator Brookhart: “Bah! These movies are worse than Wall Street and the
Liquor racket. They are ruining American morals—”
Marlene: “Why, Mr. Senator, here I’ve been in Hollywood all this time and
I’ve never seen any of this sin you talk about in Congress.”
—Excerpt from Impossible Interview No. 10
Art 26 (Wall K)
Miguel Covarrubias
Impossible Interview No. 4, Huey Long (1893-1935) vs. Benito Mussolini
(1883-1945), 1932
Gouache on paper
Published in Vanity Fair, March 1932
This interview brought together Italian dictator Benito Mussolini and Huey
Long who, as the governor of Louisiana, maintained dictatorial control over
state government. Dressed in nightshirt and fascist uniform, Long and
Mussolini strike similar poses while attempting to close an impossible deal.
Governor Long: “I'm the Mussolini of Baton Rouge. I reckon you’re the
Mussolini of Rome, Italy.”
Signor Mussolini: “I am il Duce!”
Governor Long: “You said something, Big Boy, but I don't know what.”
—Excerpt from Impossible Interview No. 4
Art 27 (Wall K)
Miguel Covarrubias
James J. Walker (1881-1946), 1932
Gouache on board
Published on the cover of Vanity Fair, April 1932
Inscribed: “To Nick the Nut”
“Jimmie” Walker was the fun-loving, flamboyant mayor of New York City
from1926-1932. The initial years of his mayoralty were a prosperous time
for the city, with improvements in sanitation, hospitals, and subways. He
was a popular figure known for his charm, wit, and particularly for his
enthusiastic participation in New York City high life, which did little to
impair his popularity. After the stock market crash of 1929, however, the
state legislature charged Walker with corruption. He resigned in 1932.
Art 28 (Wall K)
Miguel Covarrubias
Impossible Interview No. 12, Clark Gable (1901-1960) vs. Edward, Prince of
Wales (1894-1972), 1932
Gouache and ink on paper
Published in Vanity Fair, November 1932
With a nod and a handshake, the dashing movie star Clark Gable meets the
ever-so-refined Edward, Prince of Wales. Their humorous discourse spirals
ever downward as they contemplate the consequences of their sexual appeal
to womankind and their popularity to their respective nations.
Wales: “Personally I can go in for other things. When the ladies are no
longer sold on me, I sell the men on the British Empire. But what will you
do?”
Gable: “I don't know, but I shall hang on by my ears as long as I am
Gable.”
—Excerpt from Impossible Interview No. 12
Art 29 (Wall K)
Miguel Covarrubias
Impossible Interview No. 11, Al Capone (1899-1947) vs. Chief Justice
Charles Evans Hughes (1862-1948), 1932
Gouache on board
Published in Vanity Fair, October 1932
Al Capone, known as “Scarface” and “Public Enemy Number One,” went to
jail in 1931, not for numerous gang-related crimes but for income tax
evasion. In this caricature, Covarrubias and Ford present the gangland boss
with Charles Evan Hughes, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, who
opposed the adoption in 1913 of the Sixteenth Amendment to the
Constitution, which instituted the federal income tax. For years, Capone’s
multimillion-dollar bootlegging organization projected its influence over
politicians as well as municipal and state courts.
Capone: “Some guys don't get paid with money. Take me, for instance. What
do I care for cash? Power. That's my racket.”
Hughes (thoughtfully): “You talk more like the chief of a Government than a
convict.”
Capone: “Well, ain’t my gang the real Government of the U.S.A?”
—Excerpt from Impossible Interview No. 11
Art 30 (Wall K)
Miguel Covarrubias
Helen Wills (1906-1998), 1932
Gouache and ink on paper
Published on the cover of Vanity Fair, August 1932
Wills gained international attention through tennis, winning thirty-one major
titles during her career. She was a gold medalist in both singles and doubles
at the 1924 Olympics and was named the Associated Press Athlete of the
Year in 1935. Dubbed “Little Miss Poker Face,” Wills helped emancipate
women’s tennis from the era of long skirts, petticoats, and stockings.
Art 31 (Wall K)
Miguel Covarrubias
Edna Ferber (1885-1968), ca. 1932
Ink and wash on paper
Published in In the Worst Possible Taste (Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1932)
Edna Ferber was a successful American writer of novels, short stories and
plays. Among her most famous works were So Big (1924), Showboat (1926),
and Giant (1952).
Seated on the front of her Covered Wagon and cracking her blacksnake
whip over the trusty steeds which have already carried her several times
across the continent, from New York to Hollywood, our pioneering Edna
(“Sue Big”) Ferber sets out once more to explore the famous Bad Lands
between Fact and Fiction: the empire of the Psuedo-Historians, the
Panorama-Painters and the Scope-Seekers of literature. “If the truth were
really known, my friends” (Edna had said all this before, and doubtless
would again) “it is the sunbonnet and not the sombrero that started this
racket.”
––Original caption from In the Worst Possible Taste
Art 32 (Wall K)
Miguel Covarrubias
William Faulkner (1897-1962), ca. 1932
Ink and wash on paper
Published in In the Worst Possible Taste (Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1932)
William Faulkner was a Nobel Prize-winning American novelist.
Clad in his rompers and carrying his little tin pail and shovel, in case he
desires to dig in the dirt, Bill halts nervously in the loft of the old barn and
grips his corncob pipe, glancing about him furtively at the dark and sinister
shadows, full of their vague but suggestive meanings. It was in this
forbidden corncrib, at one time or another, that most of “Sanctuary” was
laid.
—Original caption from In the Worst Possible Taste
Art 33 (Wall K)
Miguel Covarrubias
Rockwell Kent (1882-1971), ca. 1932
Ink and wash on board
Published in In the Worst Possible Taste (Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1932)
Rockwell Kent was an American painter, printmaker, author, and activist.
Surrounded by one of his familiar black-and-white landscapes—complete
with geometric icebergs, angular nudes and a slide-rule sunset, its rays
numbered carefully from $10 to $10,000.00—Rockwell stands created at last
in his own image. Before him lies his Art, the Art of creating too-muchness
out of Nothing. Behind him several basalt-buttocked Eskimo girls leap from
crag to cubic crag in terror, as Rockwell raises his arms aloft in joy at the
sight of this virgin territory. “Greenland,” he exclaims, “so wild and
beautiful!”
—Original caption from In the Worst Possible Taste
Art 34 (Wall K)
Miguel Covarrubias
Floyd Gibbons (1887-1939), ca. 1932
Ink and wash on paper
Published in In the Worst Possible Taste (Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1932)
Floyd Gibbons was a war correspondent for the Chicago Tribune and NBC.
Amid shot and shell, our irrepressible Floyd (“Hello, Everybody!”) Gibbons
sticks bravely at his typewriter and his microphone, sending over the latest
ringside reports on the Sino-Japanese War. The toes of a deceased Oriental
are turned up before him; in the distance a bomb has just exploded and
blown several more victims into the air; a Japanese machine-gun has even
sent a bullet through the upper half of Floyd’s own head. Fortunately none
of these mishaps seems to have made the slightest difference to our intrepid
correspondent. “What a fight!” he cables back eagerly, at two bits a word,
“some murder! Boy oh boy oh boy . . .”
—Original caption from In the Worst Possible Taste
Art 35 (Wall S)
Miguel Covarrubias
Woman from Tehuantepec, 1944
Oil on canvas
San Antonio Museum of Art; Purchased with funds provided by
the Robert J. and Helen C. Kleberg Foundation
Art 36 (Wall S)
Miguel Covarrubias
Untitled [Seated Tehuana], not dated
Gouache on paper
Art 37 (Wall S CUT for SAMA loan)
Miguel Covarrubias
Tehuantepec Indian with violin, not dated
Ink, watercolor, and colored pencil on paper
Art 38 (Wall S CUT for SAMA loan)
Miguel Covarrubias
Untitled [Four Mexican women at market], not dated
Watercolor on paper
Art 39 (Wall S)
Miguel Covarrubias
Untitled [Three Balinese women with basket of grain, bananas, and bottles],
ca. 1937
Ink on paper
Art 40 (Wall S)
Miguel Covarrubias
The Abuang, ca. 1937
Watercolor on paper
Published in Island of Bali (Alfred A. Knopf, 1937)
Covarrubias describes the Abuang as “a decadent version of the ancient
mating dance found in the village of Tenganan,” and adds that it is
performed once a year by unmarried girls and boys.
Art 41 (Wall S)
Miguel Covarrubias
Untitled [Balinese landscape], ca. 1934
Oil on canvas
Art 42 (Wall S)
Miguel Covarrubias
Untitled [Portrait of man wearing hibiscus], ca. 1937
Gouache on paper
Art 43 (Wall S)
Miguel Covarrubias
Untitled [Profile of a young Balinese], ca. 1937
Ink on paper
Published in Island of Bali (Alfred A. Knopf, 1937)
This drawing appears in the Island of Bali’s chapter titled “The Family,”
between the subheadings “Adolescence” and “The Balinese love life.” It
serves to illustrate the Balinese physical ideal of the human body and its
facial features.
Art 44 (Wall S)
Miguel Covarrubias
Untitled [Nubian Woman], ca. 1932
Oil on canvas
Art 45 (Wall S)
Miguel Covarrubias
For eight days and eight nights . . . , ca. 1932
Ink and gouache on board
Published in Batouala (Limited Editions Club, 1932)
The painting depicts the funeral ceremony of Batouala’s father, an African
tribal elder, who died after drinking too much cheap French absinthe. The
tribe follows the prescribed tradition of mourning and “Thus for eight days
and eight nights, weeping and wailing women kept vigil about the body . . . ”
Art 46 (Wall I)
Miguel Covarrubias
Alfred Knopf (1892-1984), not dated
Ink and wash on paper
Inscribed: “For Alfred with ‘kindest’ regards. From Miguel”
Published in the New Yorker, 4 December 1948
Alfred Knopf published Miguel Covarrubias’s first book in America in 1925
and encouraged, financed, and supported the artist’s work throughout his
career by publishing the majority of his signature books. In this affable
portrait, Covarrubias honored his publisher by surrounding him with his
best-selling authors and favorite books on wine.
Art 47 (Wall I)
Miguel Covarrubias
Blanche Knopf (1894-1966), not dated
Watercolor on board
Published in The Borzoi (Alfred A. Knopf, 1925)
Blanche Knopf was a founding member, administrator, and Vice President
of the Knopf publishing firm. She was not only a gifted editor, but also close
friends with many of the leading authors she brought to the firm, including
Miguel Covarrubias. Her genuine interest in Latin-American authors may
have influenced the decision to publish Covarrubias’s books.
Art 48 (Wall I)
Miguel Covarrubias
F.D.R.—Everybody up now! Sing!, 1933
Ink and wash on paper
Published in Vanity Fair, September 1933
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945) was sworn in as the 32nd
President of the United States in 1933. He ushered in the New Deal and
almost completed an unprecedented fourth term in office in 1945. His
policies helped pull America out of the Great Depression. Appearing under
the heading “Potomac Singers,” this drawing appeared on the same page
with caricatures of other political personalities of the time. Roosevelt’s
selected song was “Pack up Your Troubles.” The following caption appeared
with Roosevelt’s caricature:
Lastly, Choirmaster Roosevelt, hoping to create unison out of discord, lifts
his voice in a chorale whose theme deals with smiles, troubles—and kit
bags, but not with their price.
Art 49 (Wall I)
Miguel Covarrubias
Ogden Mills—Now Open for Future Bookings (1884-1937), 1933
Ink wash on paper
Published in Vanity Fair, September 1933
Ogden L. Mills was President Herbert Hoover’s Secretary of the Treasury
from 1932 to 1933 during the Great Depression. Mills, a conservative,
believed in “sound money,” the gold standard, and a strict balanced budget.
His unpopular career in government ended with the election of Franklin
Delano Roosevelt and his New Deal. Under the heading “Potomac Singers,”
this drawing appeared on the same page with F.D.R. and others. Mills’s
selected song was “Mas-sa’s in de cold, cold ground.” The following caption
appeared with Mills’s caricature:
Og—wearing blackface because he feels that way—yearns mellifluously for
that old gang of his.
Art 50 (Wall I)
Miguel Covarrubias
Joseph Medill Patterson (1879-1946), 1938
Ink and wash on paper
Published in the New Yorker, 13 August 1938
Joseph Medill Patterson founded and edited the New York Daily News, an
American tabloid first published in 1919. In 1938, Patterson and the paper
were profiled together in the New Yorker:
Both are earthy, lusty, and on occasion designedly vulgar; both hate the rich
and love the New Deal; both are intensely patriotic and almost
pathologically afraid of Japan. Patterson is mischievous and proudly
lowbrow. So is the News. Patterson is distrustful of reformers, and impatient
with restraints upon the enjoyment of life. So is the News.
Art 51 (Wall I)
Miguel Covarrubias
Brigadier-General Hugh Johnson (1882-1942), 1934
Ink and wash on board
Published in the New Yorker, 25 August 1934
Appointed in 1933 under President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal,
General Hugh Johnson was head of the National Recovery Administration.
Johnson was a brilliant but explosive genius who maintained a love for
propaganda, a flair for epigram, and an amazing arsenal of profane
expletives.
Art 52 (Wall I)
Miguel Covarrubias
Alfred Lunt (1892-1977), Lynn Fontanne (1887-1983), and Helen Westley
(1875-1942) in Reunion in Vienna, 1931
Ink and wash on paper
Published in the New Yorker, 26 December 1931
The Theater Guild’s production of Robert E. Sherwood’s comedy opened on
November 16, 1931, starring the famous acting couple Lunt and Fontanne
with Helen Westley, co-founder of the Greenwich Square Players and the
Theater Guild. The play’s twisted plot wove romance with irony.
Art 53 (Wall I)
Miguel Covarrubias
Alfred Lunt (1892-1977) and Lynn Fontanne (1887-1983) in Idiot's Delight,
1936
Ink and wash on board
Published in the New Yorker, 11 April 1936
Robert E. Sherwood’s comedy about a couple who find each other amid the
rise of fascism and the outbreak of war opened on March 24, 1936. The play
went on to win the Pulitzer Prize. Lunt and Fontanne, one of the most
successful acting partnerships of the twentieth century, play an American
and a Russian stranded in the Italian Alps.
Art 54 (Wall I)
Miguel Covarrubias
Hideki Tojo (1884-1948), ca. 1942
Ink on board
A Japanese general and statesman who became prime minister in 1941,
Tojo’s accession marked the final triumph of a Japanese military faction that
advocated war with the United States and Great Britain. Tojo held extreme
right-wing views and was a supporter of Nazi Germany. He advocated an
aggressive foreign policy and ordered the attack on Pearl Harbor on
December 7, 1941.
Art 55 (Wall I)
Miguel Covarrubias
Juan Perón (1895-1974), not dated
Watercolor and ink on paper
Juan Domingo Perón was an Argentine soldier and president of Argentina
from 1946-1955 and 1973-1974. After seizing power in 1943, Colonel
Perón, along with other leaders associated with the military, favored Japan
and Fascist Germany until the end of World War II.
Art 56 (Wall I) Up 1st, , ROTATE WITH Art #57 AFTER 4 MOS
Miguel Covarrubias
Radio Talent, ca. 1938
Watercolor on board
Original illustration for Fortune (New York), May 1938
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
Celebrity caricature was often at its very best when subjects were grouped
together as in this large cast of disembodied characters floating out along the
early evening’s airwaves. Covarrubias’s mural-like portrait paid tribute to
the many famous personalities of the time while the accompanying
magazine article addressed the spiraling costs of famous voices, competition
between sponsors, and Hollywood’s central role as the “greatest maker and
taker of names on earth.”
Art 57 (Wall I) UP 2nd, ROTATE WITH Art #56 AFTER 4 MOS
Miguel Covarrubias
Lightning Conductors, 1937
Gouache on paper mounted on board
Original illustration published in Vogue, 15 November 1937
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
Art 58 (Wall H)
Nickolas Muray (American, b. Hungary, 1892-1965)
Untitled, 1939
Left to right: Beta and Alfa Ríos Pineda, Rose Covarrubias, Diego Rivera,
Miguel Covarrubias, Frida Kahlo, and Nickolas Muray (seated in front)
Published in Life, 23 January 1939
Reproduced from original silver gelatin photograph
Art 59 (Wall H) Rotates with Art #78 after 4 mos.
Rufino Tamayo (Mexican, 1899-1991)
Untitled [Portrait of Nickolas Muray], 1954
Charcoal and white wash on plywood
Born in Oaxaca, Mexico, Rufino Tamayo is best known for his ability to
combine Mexican folk imagery with European modernism in an avant-garde
style. His long and prolific career includes easel paintings as well as murals,
prints, and sculpture. Tamayo’s great creative period, according to Octavio
Paz, began in New York around 1940. It was during the years in New York
that he and his wife Olga became friends with the Muray family. Tamayo
donated his collection of pre-Columbian art to the people of Oaxaca in 1974,
forming the Rufino Tamayo Museum of Pre-Hispanic Mexican Art. His
collection of contemporary European and American art became the Rufino
Tamayo Museum of International Contemporary Art, which opened in
Mexico City in 1981.
Art 60 (Wall H)
Miguel Covarrubias
Nickolas Muray, ca. 1927
Graphite, gouache, and ink on paper
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Mimi
and Nickolas C. Muray
Nick Muray was a national fencing champion representing the United States
in the 1928 and 1932 Olympics. Dedicated by Covarrubias, “to the champ,”
the female figure at Muray’s foot indicates his pursuit of other kinds of
victories.
Art 61 (Wall H)
Rufino Tamayo (Mexican, 1899–1991)
Cow Swatting Flies, 1951
Oil on Canvas
With tongue-in-cheek references to modernist art movements, Tamayo’s
neo-primitive cow speaks to a primordial magic that is truly Mexican in
origin. Cow Swatting Flies captures the relentless glow of a tropical sun. The
work combines Mexican imagery with cubism. The painting also shows
Tamayo’s use of his signature colors—red, tan, yellow, and black.
Art 62 (Wall H)
Al Hirschfeld (American, 1903-2003)
Untitled [Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) reading Ulysses in the Stork
Club], not dated
Gouache on board
Al Hirschfeld and Miguel Covarrubias met in New York in 1924 and shared
a studio together on 42nd Street. Hirschfeld, in an interview with
Covarrubias’s biographer, Adrianna Williams, recalled: “At the time, I was
more of a painter and a sculptor, but I was fascinated and very admiring of
his way of drawing. His technique consisted of elimination and
simplification. When I turned to caricature, I remembered the lesson I had
learned from him.”
Art 63 (Wall H)
Al Hirschfeld (American, 1903-2003)
Night of the Iguana, not dated
Ink on board
Director John Huston filmed Night of the Iguana (1964) in Mexico. It starred
Richard Burton as Reverend Shannon, Ava Gardner as Maxine Faulk, Sue
Lyon as Charlotte Goodall, Deborah Kerr as Hanna Jelkes, and Cyril
Delevanti as her elderly grandfather. Tennessee Williams’s original stage
production debuted in 1961.
Art 64 (Wall H)
Al Hirschfeld (American, 1903-2003)
Tennessee Williams—“His Influence and Realization,” not dated
Ink on board
Hirschfeld portrays the American playwright, Tennessee Williams (1911–
1983), as a puppet of God and puppeteer of the main characters of Stanley
Kowalski and Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire (1947) and of
Brick and Maggie Pollitt in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955). Both plays earned
Williams a Pulitzer Prize as well as the Drama Critics’ Circle Award for
Best American Play.
Art 65 (Wall G)
Juan Soriano (Mexican, b. 1920)
Untitled [Female nude], 1946
Gouache on paper
Juan Soriano is a self-taught artist who began to paint at the age of thirteen.
In 1935, he left his birthplace of Guadalajara to move to Mexico City where
he had his first exhibition with the League of Revolutionary Writers and
Artists. Soriano was mentioned in the Museum of Modern Art’s 1940
Twenty Centuries of Mexican Art exhibition as “one of the promising young
talents of the younger generation.”
Soriano lived in Europe sporadically throughout the 1950s and 1970s, with
brief sojourns in Mexico. Known for a wide variety of subjects, including
landscapes and theatrical and magical pictures, Soriano began painting in a
semi-abstract style, combining the spirit of Mexico with the color and light
of the Mediterranean. Today, Soriano’s large cast metal sculpture and
ceramics incorporate his heritage and the natural world into abstract,
imaginative, dreamlike subjects. In 1987 the Mexican government awarded
him the National Art Prize, the most prestigious prize for artistic
achievement in Mexico.
Art 66 (Wall G)
Rafael Navarro (Mexican, b. 1921)
Animals, 1950
Oil on board
Rafael Navarro received his first drawing lesson at the age of fourteen at the
Academy of San Carlos. He was schooled in the humanities and was a
student of philosophy at the Mexican National Seminary, which brought a
well-rounded background to his painting. He began participating in group
shows in 1950 and won a scholarship to study in Paris where he trained at
the École des Beaux Arts. Inés Amor gave the artist his first important oneman show at the Galería de Arte Mexico in 1953. Navarro has since had
many one-man shows in Europe, the United States, and Mexico.
His large, twin murals dedicated to the origins of medicine are located in the
entrance to Seton Medical Park Tower on West 38th Street in Austin.
Art 67 (Wall G)
Roberto Montenegro (Mexican, 1881–1968)
Adioses (Farewells), 1930
Oil on board
Roberto Montenegro worked primarily as a painter, but he is also known as
an illustrator, stage designer, graphic artist, muralist, and writer. Born in
Guadalajara, he began his studies in 1905 at Mexico City’s Academy of San
Carlos, under Antonio Fabrés, Julio Ruelas, and Germán Gedovius. His
classmates included Diego Rivera and Saturnino Herrán. Between 1906 and
1919, he studied, traveled, and exhibited throughout Europe where he was
influenced by both modern and traditional styles. Picasso and Juan Gris
encouraged him to develop his surrealist aesthetic, reflected here in Adioses.
Returning to Mexico City in 1920, Montenegro took part in the revolution
that instigated the production of mural painting.
As a writer, art critic, and artist, Montenegro made great efforts to preserve
and promote Mexican popular art in exhibitions that opened in 1921 in
Mexico and in 1922 in Los Angeles, southern California’s first large show of
Mexican popular art. Montenegro was also in charge of the popular art
section of the 1940 exhibition Twenty Centuries of Mexican Art, at the
Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Art 68 (Wall G)
Guillermo Meza (Mexican, 1917-1997)
Baile (Dance), not dated
Oil on paper
Miguel Covarrubias called Guillermo Meza “one of the most impressive
talents among the younger artists” in the exhibition catalogue that
accompanied Twenty Centuries of Mexican Art (1940). His parents were
Tlaxcalan Indians, and as a child he lived in the village of Ixtapalpa in the
Valley of Mexico. Meza took up drawing and painting while working behind
his father’s tailor shop. In 1937, at the age of 20, he went to Morelia, where
he worked as an assistant to the painter Santos Balmori and studied at the
Spain-Mexico School. In 1939 Meza showed his drawings to Diego Rivera,
who sent a letter of support to Inés Amor at the Galería de Arte Mexicano.
Amor agreed to sponsor Meza and only three years later he had his first oneman show at the Galería de Arte Mexicano.
Meza’s signature surrealist style, which often incorporates hooded or
shrouded figures, reflects his understanding of the racial complexities of
Mexican society. Of his work, Meza once said: “Above all, paintings must
be social, not political, and before social, human.”
Art 69 (Wall T)
Fernando Castillo (Mexican, 1895-1940)
La Hija del Pintor (Daughter of the Artist), not dated
Oil on canvas
Before becoming a painter and wood engraver, Fernando Castillo worked
various jobs as a shepherd, fireman, soldier, and porter. He lost a leg serving
in the Mexican Revolution. At the age of thirty-eight, Castillo took his first
art classes at the Popular Painting Center in Mexico City’s working-class
San Pablo district. His teacher and mentor was Gabriel Fernández Ledesma.
Castillo had an innate gift for drawing and threw himself enthusiastically
into painting. Although he spent the last years of his life in financial
hardship, he continued to paint when supplies were available.
Art 70
Diego Rivera (Mexican, 1886-1957)
Una Niña con Muñeca, 1939
Oil on canvas
Diego Rivera began studying art at the age of 10 and traveled to Europe at
21, where he settled in Paris. His influences there included Pablo Picasso,
Georges Braque, and Paul Cézanne among others. While in Paris, Rivera
also met fellow Mexican artist David Alfaro Siqueiros. In 1921, following
the Mexican Revolution, Rivera and Siqueiros returned to Mexico and with
other artists, including José Clemente Orozco, formed the Painters’
Syndicate, which issued a manifesto promoting public murals within a social
context. In December 1921, Rivera started painting his first major mural for
the Bolivar Auditorium of the National Preparatory School in Mexico City.
Many important murals followed in Mexico and the United States.
In August 1929, Rivera married the artist Frida Kahlo. Their extramarital
affairs lead to a stormy relationship and a short-lived divorce but they
reunited within a year. Rivera was a revolutionary painter who wanted to
take art to a broad audience in a direct representational style full of social
meaning. Parallel to his creative career, Diego Rivera gathered a magnificent
collection of Mexican popular art.
Art 71
Nickolas Muray (American, b. Hungary, 1892-1965)
Untitled [Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera with gas mask], ca. 1939
Photographic reproduction
Art 72 ALSO Art 94 (Wall T: Wall case #3)
Frida Kahlo (Mexican, 1907-1954)
Diego y Yo (Diego and me), 1930
Charcoal, graphite, and ink on paper
Art 73 (Wall T)
Nickolas Muray (American, b. Hungary, 1892-1965)
Untitled [Nickolas Muray with Frida Kahlo and her unfinished painting Me
and My Parrots], ca. 1939
Photographic reproduction
Art 74 (Wall T) Rotates in after Art #76, Kahlo’s SP goes out on loan.
Frida Kahlo (Mexican, 1907-1954)
Still Life, 1951
Oil on canvas
Frida Kahlo did not originally plan to become an artist. At the age of fifteen
she entered the pre-medical program at the National Preparatory School in
Mexico City. Three years later, Kahlo was seriously injured in a bus and
streetcar accident that left her partially handicapped and in pain for the rest
of her life. During her convalescence, she taught herself how to paint. Over
time, painting became an act of cathartic ritual for her, with the symbolic
images portraying a cycle of wonder, pain, death, and rebirth. Married in
1929 to Diego Rivera, Kahlo’s artworks, mostly self-portraiture and still life,
narrate her personal story and are filled with the imagery and bright colors of
the Mexican folk-art that she loved. André Breton and many other critics
considered Kahlo a surrealist; she called herself a Mexican realist.
Art 75 (Wall T portable, appears w/ MC quote)
Nickolas Muray (American, b. Hungary, 1892-1965)
Miguel Covarrubias, ca. 1950s
Photographic reproduction
Art 76 (Wall T) Rotates out on loan end of October? Replaced by Art #74
Frida Kahlo (Mexican, 1907–1954)
Self-portrait with Thorn-necklace and Hummingbird, 1940
Oil on canvas mounted on board
Frida Kahlo did not originally plan to become an artist. At the age of fifteen
she entered the pre-medical program at the National Preparatory School in
Mexico City. Three years later, Kahlo was seriously injured in a bus and
streetcar accident that left her partially handicapped and in pain for the rest
of her life. During her convalescence, she taught herself how to paint. Over
time, painting became an act of cathartic ritual for her, with the symbolic
images portraying a cycle of wonder, pain, death, and rebirth. Married in
1929 to Diego Rivera, Kahlo’s artworks, mostly self-portraiture and still life,
narrate her personal story and are filled with the imagery and bright colors of
the Mexican folk-art that she loved. André Breton and many other critics
considered Kahlo a surrealist; she called herself a Mexican realist.
Art 77 (Wall K) NPG 2000.36, Replaced by Art #24 after 4 mos.
Miguel Covarrubias
Carl Van Vechten (American, 1880-1964), ca. 1925
Ink and watercolor over graphite
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
Inscribed “A Prediction,” Covarrubias caricatured his friend as a black man
because of Van Vechten’s promotion of African American writers,
musicians, and artists and his involvement in the Harlem Renaissance.
Art 78 (Wall H) Rotates with Art #60 after 4 mos.
Nickolas Muray (American, b. Hungary, 1892-1965)
Untitled [Nickolas Muray sitting for his portrait by Rufino Tamayo], 1954
Silver gelatin Photograph
Mimi Muray, Nickolas Muray Photo Archives
[99]
Nicholas Muray (American, b. Hungary, 1892-1965)
Miguel Covarrubias and Nicholas Muray, ca. 1925
Photographic Reproduction