Rivera. Gerry Souter

Dolores Olmedo, Mexico City

      His New Exile to Europe

      During the time that Diego Rivera remained in Paris and travelled in Italy, his homeland once again went up in flames and was riddled with violence. The combined armies of Emiliano Zapata, Pancho Villa and Venustiano Carranza opposed Huerta’s government. Villa fought to avenge Madero and to become the next president, Zapata led an agrarian revolt of the campesinos, and Carranza claimed he fought to create a democratic Mexico.

      Suburbs of Paris

      1918

      Oil on canvas, 65 × 80 cm

      Private collection

      During the ten years that followed the assassination of President Madero – the Decada de Dolores (the Decade of Sorrow) – all three of Mexico’s legendary champions were assassinated. The last was the retired Pancho Villa, machine-gunned in an ambush in 1923.

      Villa’s death was still years in the future as Diego rendered pencil sketches using Cubist fractured planes. He created Toledo landscapes with sliced hillsides Cézannesque trees and jumbled houses. At last, he painted Man with a Cigarette, a Cubist portrait, and surrendered his talent to the Cubists’ faceted world.