Portrait of Marevna

Prior to achieving renown as a muralist, Diego Rivera lived in Paris amid Pablo Picasso’s circle, working in a Cubist manner. Portrait of Marevna depicts Rivera’s mistress, the Russian artist Maria Vorobieff-Stebelska. The couple’s relationship was tempestuous; Rivera later described Marevna as a “she-devil,” and he conveyed a sense of her ferocity in this portrait, particularly in the figure’s distinctive frown and squinting eye. The portrait exemplifies Rivera’s adoption of elements of Synthetic Cubism: he constructed images sequentially, building layer upon layer rather than deconstructing forms into fragmented planes. Rivera emphasized the geometric patterning of the composition through his use of textures, such as the rectangular brocade, which appears to be a piece of fabric or wallpaper but is in fact illusionistic paint, referencing Cubist collage techniques.