Diego Rivera Portrait Exhibited for First Time in a Century

A striking early portrait by acclaimed Mexican painter Diego Rivera (1886–1957) is now on view at The Huntington—the artwork’s first public exhibition since the 1912 Salon d’Automne in Paris.

“This is a rare, early Rivera, from his European years, before he returned to Mexico and became synonymous with the muralist movement,” said Christina Nielsen, Hannah and Russel Kully Director of the Art Museum. “It’s elegant, formal, and very unlike the Rivera most people know.”

Painted by Rivera when he was working in Paris at the start of his career, the oil-on-canvas portrait represents Hermenegildo Alsina, a Catalan book binder, photographer, and publisher who was a close friend of the artist. Rivera depicts Alsina as a nonchalant and sophisticated gentleman wearing a fashionable overcoat, green feathered necktie, and hat.

The monumental presence of Alsina’s figure demonstrates Rivera’s engagement with European traditions of full-length portraiture. The brushstrokes of the sky behind Alsina, however, swirl expressively and frame the subject in a dramatic halo of light. Despite the portrait’s traditional format, this dynamic stylistic approach recalls the influence of the international modernist painters whom the young artist counted among his friends.

Portrait of Señor Hermenegildo Alsina complements The Huntington’s wide variety of portraiture among its art collections and exhibitions, including historical British grand manner portraits in the Thornton Portrait Gallery, the recent acquisition of a masterful Goya portrait, and a retrospective of Los Angeles artist Don Bachardy’s work, currently on view in the MaryLou and George Boone Gallery. On loan from a private collection, the painting of Alsina will be on the second floor of the Huntington Art Gallery for the next two years.

Andrew Kersey is the senior writer in the Office of Communications and Marketing at The Huntington.