Style Imitating Art | Dance in Tehuantepec by Diego Rivera

About Style Imitating Art

Style Imitating Art is hosted by Salazar of 14 Shades of Grey, Shelbee of Shelbee on the Edge, and Marsha of Marsha in the Middle. Style Imitating Art challenges us to draw style inspiration from pieces of art. Every other Monday, one of the hosts, acting as presenter, selects an inspiration image that they will each post on their blogs. The following Monday, each host shares her art inspired outfit. Participants are invited to submit their art inspired outfits to the presenter by 10:00 p.m. EST on the Tuesday following the hosts’ art inspired outfit posts. The following day, Wednesday, the presenter will share all of the submissions on her blog.

You don’t have to be a blogger to join either! In fact, you don’t even have to join but you can still use the art to inspire an outfit just for the sake of trying something different. If you want to share your inspired outfit, we invite you do so on Instagram or any other social media platform that you prefer. Just be sure to tag Salazar, Shelbee, or Marsha or use #TeamLOTSStyle and #StyleImitatingArt so the hosts know you have joined. Go have some fun in your closets and join the SIA challenge next week!

This Week’s Presenter

It was my turn to choose our art inspiration. Because today is Cinco de Mayo, I wanted to feature a Mexican artist. At first, I was going to choose something by Frida Kahlo but Salazar has already featured Frida’s work in previous SIA challenges so instead I chose a work by her husband Diego Rivera. 

Initially, I chose his 1928 painting, Dance in Tehuantepec, which is one of his most famous works showcasing pure images of his home country and Mexican social life as he perceived it. I really like the deep rich colors in this painting as well as the traditional Mexican clothing to provide some style inspiration. But I also really liked a similar painting with the same vibe but a different color palette from 1935, which is called Baile en Tehauntepec (Spanish for Dance in Tehauntepec). Because the two paintings have the same name and give the same energy, I figured why not share both as our inspiration! You are welcome to use one or the other or both as your inspiration to create an outfit. My outfit was specifically inspired by the 1928 painting, Dance in Tehauntepec.

The Artwork

Dance in Tehuantepec, 1928

The Other Painting: Baile en Tehauntepec, 1935

About the Artist: Diego Rivera

Twin brothers, Carlos and Diego Rivera were born on December 8, 1886, in Guanajuato, Mexico, to financially privileged parents, María del Pilar Barrientos and Diego Rivera Acosta. After Carlos died at the age of two, Diego and his parents moved to Mexico City. In their new home, three year old Diego expressed an interest in art as he began drawing on the walls of the family home. To encourage his artistic expression, his parents installed chalkboards and canvases on the walls and later enrolled him in the San Carlos Academy of Fine Arts around the age of ten.

Diego Rivera was of Spanish, Amerindian, African, Italian, Jewish, Russian, and Portuguese descent. His mother is believed to have had converso ancestry, which is a group of Jewish Spaniards who were forced to convert to Catholicism during the 15th and 16th centuries. Despite not being raised Jewish or practicing any part of the Jewish faith (he was a self-proclaimed atheist), Rivera credited his Jewishness as a dominant element in his life which greatly informed his art and increased his sympathy for marginalized people.

At the age of 21, Rivera was sponsored to continue his art studies in Europe and first went to Madrid, Spain, under the tutelage of Eduardo Chicharro. Later he moved to Paris, France, where he settled in with a group of young American and European writers and artists. It was here that he met Angelina Beloff, a fellow artist hailing from the pre-Revolutionary Russian Empire, and the two were married in 1911. They had a son, Diego, who was born in 1916 but he died just two years later. Although he was married, Rivera also had a relationship with painter Maria Vorobieff-Stebelska who gave birth to their daughter, Marika Rivera, in 1919.

During his Paris years, a group of prominent young painters began experimenting with Cubism, an art movement led by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. Rivera’s works from 1913 to 1917 illustrate his enthusiastic implementation of the Cubist style; however, around 1917, his works began showing a Post-Impressionist influence inspired by the works of Paul Cézanne.

In 1920, Rivera was encouraged by the Mexican ambassador to France to travel through Italy for the purpose of studying their artworks including Renaissance frescoes. He returned to Mexico in 1921 to be involved in a mural program sponsored by the Mexican government. His large scale fresco paintings helped to firmly establish the mural movement in both Mexico and internationally.

In June 1922, after divorcing his first wife and returning to Mexico City, Rivera married his second wife, Guadalupe Marín, who gave birth to the couple’s two daughters, Ruth and Guadalupe. He was still married to Guadalupe when he first met Frida Kahlo, a Mexican art student twenty years his junior. Rivera and Kahlo began a passionate love affair which resulted in his divorce from his second wife. Rivera subsequently married Kahlo on August 21, 1929, when he was 42 years old and she was 22. They divorced ten years later in 1939 due to their mutual infidelities and Rivera’s violent temper, but they remarried on December 8, 1940, in San Francisco, California. On July 29, 1955, one year after Kahlo’s death, Rivera married his fourth wife, Emma Hurtado, who had been his agent since 1946.

During his later years, Diego Rivera split his time between Mexico and the United States. He died on November 24, 1957, at the age of 70, and is buried at the Panteón de Dolores in Mexico City.

Diego Rivera produced hundreds of paintings including his large scale frescos as well as a significant number of other types of artwork including works on paper, photography, and a single sculpture. His works have been categorized into five different eras: the formative years (1886-1912), pre-Cubism (1912-1913), Cubism (1913-1920), Realism (1917-1918), and Social Realism (1921-1957).

About the Artwork: Dance in Tehuantepec, 1928

Dance in Tehuantepec is a 1928 painting by Diego Rivera from his Social Realism period. The painting portrays a group of dancers performing La Sandunga, a traditional Mexican waltz, underneath the canopy of a banana tree. The painting measures 79 in. x 64.5 in. (200.7 cm x 163.8 cm) and is one of the largest canvases that Rivera painted in his lifetime.

The painting was first exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City in 1930 and was later included in a major Diego Rivera retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1931. This work is one illustration of Rivera’s efforts to establish a Mexican national identity through his painting and is considered one of his most important works.

Dance in Tehuantepec sold at auction in 2016 for $15.7 million to Argentinian collector Eduardo Costantini, setting a world record for price of any Latin American artwork. This sale broke Frida Kahlo’s record from the previous month when her 1939 painting “Two Nudes in the Forest (The Land Itself)” sold at auction for $8 million.

Resources/References:

• Wikipedia: Diego Rivera
• Artsy: Diego Rivera-Dance in Tehuantepec, 1928
• Baile en Tehauntepec by Diego Rivera
• Detroit Free Press: Diego Rivera painting sells privately for $15.7 million

About My Outfit

Once I decided which painting to use as my inspiration, I very quickly settled on this burnt ochre maxi dress from last summer because it perfectly represents the dresses worn by the women in the painting. I have this dress in three different colorways but have only shared the black printed one in a previous post. Last summer, I wore and photographed this orange dress multiple times but the photos never made it to the blog.

Those unshared outfits photos almost proved to be a blessing in disguise because it has been raining and raining and raining here making outdoor photoshoots nearly impossible. As I kept checking the weather forecast that showed no break in the rain showers for days, I had succumbed to the idea of using the old photos of this dress for this art challenge. I had previously styled the orange dress with this black butterfly print kimono robe as well as this black floral print kimono robe. Both were adequate to represent the artwork but I was not entirely satisfied with the black robes because black is not a dominant color in the painting.

Fortunately, there was a short break in the rain yesterday morning so I was able to restyle this dress with a more appropriate green and orange floral kimono robe that better captured the colors and essence of the painting. It was drizzling and a bit on the chillier side of things so I also added a lightweight green cardigan beneath my robe for extra warmth and my green oversized straw hat to keep the rain off of my glasses.

Although the women in the painting are barefoot, I did need to wear shoes since it is definitely not barefoot weather here yet. I opted for my white cowgirl boots to mimic the white band on the hem of the dancers’ skirts. I kept my jewelry fairly simple with my Shelbee mala beads which resemble the necklace worn by the dancer in the painting and a newly acquired necklace and earrings set. I found the necklace at a flea market in Pennsylvania two weeks ago and a few days later I found the coordinating earrings in a flea market in New York. I cannot believe how well they coordinate.

I was undeniably pleased with the outcome of this outfit inspired by art. But then again, I am undeniably pleased every time I wear one of these amazingly comfortable and super flattering maxi dresses. I will share the other two stylings of this burnt ochre dress soon.

I hope you have enjoyed this round of Style Imitating Art. If you want to play along and be featured with your own art inspired outfit in my gallery post on Wednesday, May 7, 2025, be sure to submit your photos to me at shelbeeontheedge@gmail.com by 10:00 p.m. EST on Tuesday, May 6, 2025. In the meantime, be sure to check out Salazar’s interpretation of this illustration as well as Marsha’s take on it. 

Happy styling, my friends!

Shelbee

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