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Roberto Cueva Del Rio: The Heritage of Mexican Muralism in Washington DC:
Robert Cueva del Rio (1908-1988) was born in Puebla, Mexico. At age 15, he became an illustrator at the newspaper Excelsior. His newspaper caricatures won him a scholarship to the prestigious San Carlos Academy of Fine Arts in Mexico City, which permitted him to travel through Mexico. In January 1930, Diego Rivera, then Director of the Academy, gave him an effusive letter of recommendation to travel to the United States. Cueva del Rio started painting the Embassy murals in 1933, but left them unfinished when he returned to Mexico in 1935. In 1941 [he] came back to complete the murals.
Cueva del Rio's public murals tend to deal with historical scenes and portraits of heroes. He expresses his nationalism by portraying the uniqueness and diversity of Mexican culture, the dignity of ordinary men and women, the beauty of the countryside, the great events and heroes of Mexico's long history, and the progress of modern Mexico.
Cueva del Rio's painting style is very much in the Rivera tradition: strongly modeled figures, bold colors, and heavy symbolism. We can see in a photo of the artist at work that he achieved these bold, simplified shapes by using a black outline technique. Water colors were applied al fresco, that is, on wet plaster. Cueva del Rio worked with his left hand only, as his right hand was disabled.
The Models of the Mural:
Some of the characters of the murals were generic ethnic or social types; others were individuals who lived at the Embassy or visited it frequently, such as six year old Carlos Fuentes. We can also recognize the smiling face of the young Aztec mother (left) at the top of the third floor stairs, just to the left of the doorframe, as Lupe Davile (above), niece of Ambassador Francisco Najera, seen descending the Embassy stairs with her schoolbooks in an article that appeared in the January 15, 1944, Christian Science Monitor. Erma Najera (above right), Ambassador's daughter, as she appeared in her bridal gown in an announcement of her wedding to Capt. Manuel Casto in the December 6, 1942, Washington Star. ... She appears on horseback on the right side of the Industrialization of Mexico mural. |