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Weaving

Painting of an Indigenous woman native to Mexico bent and seated on a brown floor, using red thread to create a geometric design on a backstrap loom. Earth tones dominate, while a dresser in the background and the bottom portion of the woman's white dress are a deep blue.
© 2018 Banco de México Diego Rivera Frida Kahlo Museums Trust, Mexico, D.F. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

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  • Painting of an Indigenous woman native to Mexico bent and seated on a brown floor, using red thread to create a geometric design on a backstrap loom. Earth tones dominate, while a dresser in the background and the bottom portion of the woman's white dress are a deep blue.

Date:

1936

Artist:

Diego Rivera (Mexican, 1886–1957)

About this artwork

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.

Status

On View, Gallery 263

Department

Arts of the Americas

Artist

Diego Rivera

Title

Weaving

Place

Mexico (Artist's nationality:)

Date  Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

1936

Medium

Tempera and oil on canvas

Inscriptions

Signed recto, bottom-right, in brown paint: "Diego Rivera. 1936".

Dimensions

66 × 106.7 cm (26 × 42 in.)

Credit Line

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

Reference Number

1998.529

Copyright

© 2018 Banco de México Diego Rivera Frida Kahlo Museums Trust, Mexico, D.F. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Extended information about this artwork

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.

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