Aztec Cubists Between Paris and New York: Diego Rivera, Marius de Zayas, and the Reception of Mexican Antiquities in the 1910s

Diego Rivera's identity as a Mexican played a fundamental role in the construction of his artistic style and persona. Indeed, most of his murals include references to Mexican folk and indigenous art, and to the Aztec and Mayan past—depicted as a peaceful utopia contrasting with the violence of the Spanish Conquest. Rivera was also an important collector of pre-Colombiana, acquiring more than sixty thousand such objects, now housed in the museum in Mexico City that he conceived and created for his collection.