Jean Pierre Faure

Diego Rivera's "Jean Pierre Faure" (1920) is a graphite portrait drawing on cream laid paper depicting the French art critic and collector Jean Pierre Faure. Faure was a significant figure in the Parisian art world, and his portrait by Rivera documents the network of relationships that sustained the international avant-garde. The drawing is executed with remarkable precision, the features of the critic captured with a realism that contrasts with the Cubist experiments of Rivera's earlier Paris years. By 1920, Rivera was beginning to move away from Cubism toward the more naturalistic, monumental style that would define his mural work. This portrait shows the transition: the handling is still precise and controlled, but the forms are no longer fragmented into Cubist planes. The cream laid paper provides a warm, textured ground. This portrait was likely created around the time Rivera was preparing to leave Europe for Mexico, where he would soon begin the first of the great mural cycles that would make him internationally famous.

Rivera's portrait drawings of figures from the Parisian art world document the international network of artists, critics, and collectors that sustained the School of Paris and the European avant-garde.

This graphite portrait of the critic Jean Pierre Faure captures Rivera at a turning point, the precise draftsmanship looking back to his European training while the naturalistic handling looks forward to the monumental murals of his Mexican career.