WASHINGTON, DC.- An exhibition of important cubist works by renowned Mexican modernist Diego Rivera will open at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., in spring 2004.  On view April 4 through July 25, 2004, The Cubist Paintings of Diego  Rivera: Memory, Politics, Place will celebrate a significant but little-known Rivera painting of 1915, No. 9, Nature Morte Espagnole (No. 9, Spanish Still Life), a recent gift to the National Gallery from the estate of Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham.

Organized by the National Gallery of Art, Washington, in collaboration with the Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City, the exhibition will coincide with the Gallery’s showing of the Courtly Art of the Ancient Maya.  The Rivera exhibition will then travel to the Museo de Arte Moderno in Mexico City, where it will be on view from September 19, 2004, through January 16, 2005. 

"We are pleased to be working with the Museo de Arte Moderno to bring a little-known aspect of Rivera’s work to the public in both of our countries," said Earl A. Powell III, director, National Gallery of Art.   "We are also very grateful to Target for its continuing support of exhibitions at the National Gallery."

Exhibition support -  This exhibition is proudly sponsored by Target Stores as part of its commitment to arts and education. Target previously sponsored the exhibition Frederic Remington: The Color of Night (2003). 

"Supporting the arts is important to Target and we are pleased to continue our partnership with the National Gallery of Art through our sponsorship of the Diego Rivera exhibition," said Laysha Ward, vice president, community relations, Target Corporation.  "Exposure to the arts allows people to experience different cultures, broaden their points of view and expand their creative thinking, which all help in building stronger communities."

The Exhibition - Rivera’s work has been studied and shown in depth, yet his cubist period remains a less understood aspect of his career.  The Cubist Paintings of Diego Rivera will include some 20 works that demonstrate his distinctive approach to synthetic cubism-his use of complex structures of transparent planes, with a particular emphasis on sensory and memory association.  

The exhibition will explore the intersection of history and the avant-garde at a key moment in the artist’s development.  The selection emphasizes the years 1914 and 1915, when Rivera was working in France and Spain.  These works also illuminate the artist’s deep engagement with themes of identity and place during a period that coincided not only with World War I but also with the most active period of the Mexican Revolution.

Many of the works in the exhibition, such as Zapatista Landscape (1915), incorporate objects that serve as emblems of Mexican identity: sarapes, petates (straw mats), an equipal (reed chair), and guajes (peasant gourds).  The inclusion of Mexican motifs and Rivera’s frequent use of the colors of the Mexican flag present a souvenir of his native land from afar, filled with revolutionary sympathy, nostalgia, and longing.

In other key works in the exhibition, Rivera explored evocative links between objects, people, and places.  Among them are such works as Eiffel Tower (1914), with emotionally charged references to the cities Rivera inhabited, and portraits of figures he associated with these cities, including his Portrait of Martín Luis Guzmán (1915). Together these paintings represent Rivera’s finest cubist work and offer important meditations on self-identity and nationalism.

Curators- The exhibition is organized by Leah Dickerman, associate curator, modern and contemporary art, National Gallery of Art, in consultation with Luis-Martín Lozano, director, Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City.  The exhibition will be accompanied by a fully illustrated brochure.