Diego Rivera (Mexican, 1886–1957)
Weaving
INV-1513
Diego Rivera (Mexican, 1886–1957)1936
Modernismoil on canvaspainting
Date
1936
Medium
Tempera and oil on canvas
Dimensions
66 × 106.7 cm (26 × 42 in.)
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Location
Chicago, IL
Credit
Gift of Josephine Wallace KixMiller in memory of her mother, Julie F. Miller, who purchased the painting from the artist at his studio in Mexico in 1936
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 Weaving, Rivera claimed her traditions as part of his own.
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