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DIEGO RIVERA -- MY ART, MY LIFE: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY (WITH GLADYS MARCH) |
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PICASSO
Portrait of Martín Luis Guzmán, 1915, oil on canvas, Fundación Televisa, A.C. Mexico City In 1913 I had reached the cubist phase of my development. I worked hard at my cubist paintings all through that year and the first half of 1914, because everything about the movement fascinated and intrigued me.
La mujer del pozo (The Woman at the Well), 1913, oil on canvas, Museo Nacional de Arte, CONACULTA, INBA, Mexico City. Verso of Paisaje Zapatista (Zapatista Landscape) It was a revolutionary movement, questioning everything that had previously been said and done in art. It held nothing sacred. As the old world would soon blow itself apart, never to be the same again, so cubism broke down forms as they had been seen for centuries, and was creating out of the fragments new forms, new objects, new patterns and -- ultimately -- new worlds. When it dawned on me that all this innovation had little to do with real life, I would surrender all the glory and acclaim cubism had brought me for a way in art truer to my inmost feelings. But in 1913-14, nothing was more exciting in art than the cubist movement. Shortly after the beginning of 1913, to prepare for the Salon d'Automne, I went to Toledo, Spain, to do a series of paintings which openly connected me with the movement. I later used some of these Toledo canvases in my first one-man show in Paris in 1914.
Still Life with Bottle, 1914, drawing with pencil, papier-collé and gouache on paper, 35.5 x 19 cm, government of Veracruz, Mexico. Among the papers Rivera used is some wallpaper. At about this time I also painted three memorable noncubist works: a portrait of my elegant fellow artist Adolfo Best; a big ferris wheel; and a foreground of the Montparnasse Station.
Retrato de Adolfo Best Maugard (Portrait of Adolfo Best Maugard), 1913, oil on canvas, Museo Nacional de Arte, CONACULTA, INBA, Mexico City I could see the latter from my studio window and, in the painting, I tried to give an impression of the trains in motion. It was a large canvas, and my friends were so impressed with it that they urged me to send it to the Independent Artists Exposition, which I did. A good friend of mine on the placement committee gave the work the best space in the show. It proved to be one of the most popular canvases, and reproductions of it were published in several art reviews. It was even caricatured among a selection of the best paintings of the shows of the year.
Nature morte espagnole (Spanish Still Life), 1915, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Art, Washington, gift of Katharine Graham On another .journey to Toledo, I completed certain canvases I had started there and did many new ones. I brought all these paintings back with me to Paris in the fall of I914, dividing most of the completed ones between the Salon and the Independents and sending the remainder for display in Prague and, later, the United States. In 1914 I was already beginning to be referred to by the critics as one of the more interesting members of the cubist movement. I was even gaining a certain fame among the avant garde. Best of all, I was living on the practice of my art, and painting as I liked.
"Naturaleza Muerta," by Diego Rivera, oil on canvas, 11 1/8 by 15 1/8 inches, 1916 The greatest of the cubists and my idol at the time was Pablo Picasso. I was eager to meet this already celebrated Spaniard, but my shyness prevented me from approaching him directly. Somehow, however, Picasso learned of my feelings toward him and one day he sent me a message through a mutual friend.
Table on a Café Terrace, 1915, Oil on canvas; 23 7/8 x 19 1/2 in. (60.6 x 49.5 cm), Alfred Stieglitz Collection, 1949 (49.70.51), © 2004 Banco de México Diego Rivera & Frida Kahlo Museums Trust. Av. Cinco de Mayo No. 2, Col. Centro, Del. Cuauhtémoc 06059, México, D.F. This friend, the talented Chilean painter Ortes de Zarete, came to my apartment early one morning. "Picasso sent me to tell you that if you don't go to see him, he's coming to see you."
Motherhood- Angelina and the Child Diego (Maternidad- Angelina y el niño Diego), oil on canvas, Museo de Arte Alvar y Carmen T. de Carrillo Gil, Mexico City. I accepted the invitation with pleasure and gratitude and immediately accompanied Zarete to Picasso's, together with my friends the Japanese painters Fujita and Kawashima, who were posing for a canvas I was then doing. This was a portrait showing two heads close to one another in a color scheme of greens, blacks, reds, and yellows. Typical of my work of this period, it owed not a little to Mondrian, a good friend and neighbor, with whom I had been exchanging ideas and artistic experiences.
The Architect (Jesús T. Acevedo), 1915, oil on canvas, Museo de Arte Carillo Gil, CONACULTA, INBA, Mexico City Dressed in the costumes used for the portrait, my Japanese models looked picturesque and amusing. Both wore long toga-like robes and sandals. Their hair was cut in bangs over their foreheads and encircled with colored ribbons. They appeared to have stepped out of a schoolbook of ancient history.
Tour Eiffel (Eiffel Tower), 1914, oil on canvas, Private collection, courtesy of Mary-Anne Martin, Fine Art, New York I went to Picasso's studio intensely keyed up. My feelings were like those of a good Christian who expects to meet Our Lord, Jesus Christ.
Woman in an Easy Chair, 1917 The interview was marvelous. Picasso's studio was full of his exciting canvases; grouped together they had an impact more powerful than when shown by dealers as individual masterpieces. They were like living parts of an organic world Picasso had himself created.
Portrait of Maximilian Volonchine, 1914-1917 As for the man, will and energy blazed from his round black eyes. His black, glossy hair was cut short like the hair of a circus strong man. A luminous atmosphere seemed to surround him. My friends and I were absorbed for hours, looking at his paintings. Our interest so pleased him that he let us see his most intimate sketchbooks. Finally, Zarete and the Japanese said good-bye and left; but when I made a motion to go, Picasso asked me to stay and have lunch with him, after which he went back with me to my studio.
El puente de San Martín, 1913, Oil on canvas, 91 x 111 cm There he asked to see everything I had done from beginning to end. I had completed my painting "Sailor Eating and Drinking," and several others that I liked: a second portrait of Adolfo Best called "The Man in the Stilograph" (now in the collection of the sculptor Indenbaum); and the still lifes "Balalaika" and "Bottle of Spanish Anise."
Sailor at Lunch, (Navy Rifleman),
1914, Oil on Canvas, 44 7/8 x 27 9/16 inches, Marta R.Gómez- INBA
Collection After I had shown Picasso these paintings, we had dinner together and stayed up practically the whole night talking. Our theme was cubism -- what it was trying to accomplish, what it had already done, and what future it had as a "new" art form.
Still Life with Balalaika, 1913, oil on canvas, Bergen Kunstmuseum With this meeting, Picasso and I became great friends. He brought all his own friends to visit my studio: the writers Guillaume Apollinaire and Max Jacob; the painters Georges Seurat, Juan Gris, and others. Picasso's enthusiasm for my work caused a sensation in Montparnasse. My contemporaries who felt kindly toward me were gratified and those who did not were surprised and outraged. Being accepted by the master of cubism himself was, of course, a source of tremendous personal satisfaction to me. Not only did 1 consider Picasso a great artist, but I respected his critical judgment, which was severe and keen. My enthusiasm for Picasso has not lessened, though today I would qualify it by two reservations. It seems to me that, in every one of his periods, Picasso has shown more imagination than originality, that everything he has done is based upon the work of somebody else. Also, I have come to feel that Picasso appeals chiefly to the emotions of the upper classes. In contrast with an artist like Renoir, for instance, he lacks a genuine universality. Renoir's first paintings were bought by such ordinary people as his wood dealer and his butcher. It would be hard to imagine Picasso's canvases hanging in any kind of worker's home. In Paris, Picasso and I used to have the best times, especially when we were by ourselves. Then we would say things about other painters which we would never tell anybody else. We would walk through the art galleries and take off on other artists' styles on the backs of match boxes. In a spirit of pure mischief, we would often play tricks on our women acquaintances, among whom I had acquired a terrible reputation. When one of them would come to his studio, Picasso would hide me behind a door. In the course of the conversation, Picasso would happen to mention my name. This would inevitably provoke a stream of epithets from his unsuspecting guest. Picasso would laugh heartily, shrug his shoulders, and say, "Well, I said he was an angel."
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