Source: WTL research files.
Painting: "Still life With Gray Bowl" (1915).
Comments: In 1914, Diego Rivera was in close contact with the artists Juan Gris (Spain), Pablo Picasso (Spain), Jacques Lipchitz (Lithuania), and the Spanish Dadaist writer Ramón Gómez de la Serna. At the outbreak of World War I, Rivera and his friends move to Madrid. In the first half of 1915, Rivera paints in the Cubist manner, as you see in this painting, but by the end of the year, due to events in the Mexican Revolution (e.g., Pancho Villa's victory at Celaya), he begins to incorporate Mexican motifs in his works.