Mercado de Tehuantepec

Diego Rivera attained almost mythic stature in Mexico in his time. The year after he made Market, the Museum of Modern Art in New York gave him a one-man show, only the second in its history (the first went to Matisse). Rivera drew on regional folklore and Mexico's indigenous cultures in his work. He owned such a huge collection of pre-Columbian and Indian art and artifacts that he built a museum to house it all. In this market scene-Rivera regularly sketched at the markets-the artist dignifies the daily life of the Mexican people.