Weaving

Diego RiveraWW-1936-014964

1936·Tempera and oil on canvas·66 × 106.7 cm (26 × 42 in.)

<p>Laboring at a backstrap loom in this painting is Luz Jiménez, a master weaver and Nahua, one of the largest Indigenous groups in Mesoamerica. With expertise and dexterity, Jiménez threads weft through warp, slowly building her intricately patterned textile, the completed portion resting on her lap. Diego Rivera, a leading modernist painter who came to prominence in the years after the Mexican Revolution (1910–20), promoted a vision of Mexican national identity rooted in Indigenous and folk cultures, distinct from the legacies of Spanish colonialism. By centering Jiménez in <em>Weaving</em>, Rivera claimed her traditions as part of his own.</p>

Catalogue

Year: 1936
Medium: Tempera and oil on canvas
Dimensions: 66 × 106.7 cm (26 × 42 in.)
Collection: Art Institute of Chicago
Artist: Diego Rivera

Artist

Diego Rivera

Painting

Famed for his monumental murals across North America, and the strong communist influence within his visual lexicon, Diego Rivera showed artistic talent from a very early age. Born in Guanajuato, Mexico, on 13 December 1886, Rivera began to draw by age three and enrolled in the Academia de San Carlos by eleven. In his twenties, he earned a grant that allowed him to travel to Spain and France. Afterwards, he returned briefly to Mexico until the outbreak of the Mexican Revolution, when he then resettled in Paris where he lived until 1919.

Mexico City, Mexico

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