Description

Diego Rivera Di-Litho

‘Reclining nude with snake’ – COA – 2008 edition – non authorized copy.

Diego Rivera (1886 – 1957) Di-Litho “Reclining nude with snake”.

After the original not dated pencil/charcoal drawing. Special non-authorized edition by Bolermo (2008). Printed single sided on heavy designer paper.

Specifications

✓ Size : 42 cm x 29,5 cm (16.8″ x 11.8″)
✓ Signed in the plate – numbered on reverse
✓ Probe (Proof) edition 02 out of 7 copies
✓ Certification on reverse side

Information on Diego Rivera

Diego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez, known as Diego Rivera (December 8, 1886 – November 24, 1957), was a prominent Mexican painter. His large frescoes helped establish the mural movement in Mexican and international art.

Rivera had numerous marriages and children, including at least one natural daughter. His first child and only son died at the age of two. His fourth wife was fellow Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, with whom he had a volatile relationship that continued until her death. He was married a fifth time, to his agent.

From the age of ten, Rivera studied art at the Academy of San Carlos in Mexico City. He was sponsored to continue study in Europe by Teodoro A. Dehesa Méndez, the governor of the State of Veracruz. After arriving in Europe in 1907, Rivera first went to Madrid, Spain to study with Eduardo Chicharro.

From there he went to Paris, France, a destination for young European and American artists and writers, who settled in inexpensive flats in Montparnasse. His circle frequented La Ruche, where his Italian friend Amedeo Modigliani painted his portrait in 1914. His circle of close friends included Ilya Ehrenburg, Chaim Soutine, Modigliani and his wife Jeanne Hébuterne, Max Jacob, gallery owner Léopold Zborowski, and Moise Kisling.

In those years, some prominent young painters were experimenting with an art form that would later be known as Cubism, a movement led by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. From 1913 to 1917, Rivera enthusiastically embraced this new art style. Around 1917, inspired by Paul Cézanne’s paintings, Rivera shifted toward Post-Impressionism, using simple forms and large patches of vivid colors. His paintings began to attract attention, and he was able to display them at several exhibitions.

In 1920, urged by Alberto J. Pani, the Mexican ambassador to France, Rivera left France and traveled through Italy studying its art, including Renaissance frescoes. After José Vasconcelos became Minister of Education, Rivera returned to Mexico in 1921 to become involved in the government sponsored Mexican mural program planned by Vasconcelos. The program included such Mexican artists as José Clemente Orozco, David Alfaro Siqueiros, and Rufino Tamayo, and the French artist Jean Charlot. In January 1922, he painted – experimentally in encaustic – his first significant mural Creation in the Bolívar Auditorium of the National Preparatory School in Mexico City while guarding himself with a pistol against right-wing students.

Rivera painted murals in the main hall and corridor at the Chapingo Autonomous University of Agriculture (UACh). He also painted a fresco mural titled Tierra Fecundada (Fertile Land in English) in the university’s chapel between 1923 and 1927. Fertile Land depicts the revolutionary struggles of Mexico’s peasant (farmers) and working classes (industry) in part through the depiction of hammer and sickle joined by a star in the soffit of the chapel. In the mural, a “propagandist” points to another hammer and sickle. The mural features a woman with an ear of corn in each hand, which art critic Antonio Rodriguez describes as evocative of the Aztec goddess of maize in his book Canto a la Tierra: Los murales de Diego Rivera en la Capilla de Chapingo.

After divorcing his third wife, Guadalupe (Lupe) Marin, Rivera married the much younger Frida Kahlo in August 1929. They had met when she was a student, and she was 22 years old when they married; Rivera was 42. Also in 1929, American journalist Ernestine Evans’s book The Frescoes of Diego Rivera, was published in New York City; it was the first English-language book on the artist. In December, Rivera accepted a commission from the American Ambassador to Mexico to paint murals in the Palace of Cortés in Cuernavaca, where the US had a consulate.

In September 1930, Rivera accepted a commission by architect Timothy L. Pflueger for two works related to his design projects in San Francisco. Rivera and Kahlo went to the city in November. Rivera painted a mural for the City Club of the San Francisco Stock Exchange for US$2,500. He also completed a fresco for the California School of Fine Art, a work that was later relocated to what is now the Diego Rivera Gallery at the San Francisco Art Institute. During this period, Rivera and Kahlo worked and lived at the studio of Ralph Stackpole, who had recommended Rivera to Pflueger. Rivera met Helen Wills Moody, a notable American tennis player, who modeled for his City Club mural.

In November 1931, the Museum of Modern Art in New York City mounted a retrospective exhibition of Rivera’s work; Kahlo attended with him. Between 1932 and 1933, Rivera completed a major commission: twenty-seven fresco panels, entitled Detroit Industry, on the walls of an inner court at the Detroit Institute of Arts. Part of the cost was paid by Edsel Ford, scion of the entrepreneur. During the McCarthyism of the 1950s, a large sign was placed in the courtyard defending the artistic merit of the murals while attacking his politics as “detestable.”

On June 5, 1940, invited again by Pflueger, Rivera returned for the last time to the United States to paint a ten-panel mural for the Golden Gate International Exposition in San Francisco. His work, Pan American Unity was completed November 29, 1940. The mural includes representations of two of Pflueger’s architectural works, and portraits of Rivera’s wife, Frida Kahlo, woodcarver Dudley C. Carter, and actress Paulette Goddard. She is shown holding Rivera’s hand as they plant a white tree together. Rivera’s assistants on the mural included Thelma Johnson Streat, a pioneer African-American artist, dancer, and textile designer. The mural and its archives are now held by City College of San Francisco

Due to his importance in the country’s art history, the government of Mexico declared Rivera’s works as “monumentos historicos”. As of 2018, Rivera holds the record for highest price at auction for a work by a Latin American artist. The 1931 painting The Rivals, part of the record setting Collection of Peggy Rockefeller and David Rockefeller, sold for US$9.76 million

Information on Di-Litho

The di-litho technology, a lithographic technology in which the printing plate prints directly onto the printing substrate, was basically uniquely created for newspaper printing. The benefit from this technology was that conventional letterpress rotary printing presses could be used.

The printing units of these presses have been modified by the installing of a dampening unit. Printing was done with conventional printing plates, however a special coating needed to be applied to them because of the very high tension because of the direct contact with the paper and the high stability with the full print run necessary in newspaper printing or the more expensive art-litho printing.

Information on Bolermo Group (issuer of these lithos)

Bolermo was an unofficial and not quite formel group, founded in 1995 and organized by Viktor Boler. The group was helping young and upcoming artists, designers, sculptors etc. by giving them the materials for creating their ‘art’ and amongst these materials were the printing machines for graphics and etchings using different techniques. Amongst these techniques : the Di-Litho ! These printed Di-Lithos were extra painted with oil and/or aquarel and sometimes with mixed materials to give an unexpected and unique ‘touch’ of the once existing ‘images’. But it also means that a lot of the Di-Lithos are non-authorized by the original artist and as such extremely rare and sought after artefacts !

The name Bolermo which the group used for printed material came directly from the founder himself as he used to sign with Boler. Due to a persistence illness of Viktor Boler, the group was dissolved in 2012 and completely closed down. The heirs of V. Boler sold the existing stock of printed and re-worked lithos during public auctions and as such came into my possession.

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