"A portrait is a picture in which there is just a tiny little something not quite right about the mouth." -- John Singer Sargent

Sunday, February 13, 2022

Diego Rivera

 


This caricature of Diego Rivera appears in  Peggy Bacon's 1934 book Off with Their Heads!. She includes a cartoon and a brief description of each of her subjects.



Gentle, heavy, sea-lion look. Mane untrammeled, rampant, separating into curving wisps with long ends back of ears. Widow's peak. Excavation in forehead like a flying bird. Deep creases starting halfway down nose and ending in cleft chin with a smooth landslide to collar. Eyes shaped like flounders with chocolate-cream pupils and set in parker-house rolls. Lips dull mulberry, thick, protruding, saved by engaging smile. Gray chin, sallow flesh. Suit hangs in a tropical-moss manner from stooped sloping shoulders which start close under ears. Upper teeth visible, naively separated. Appears the earthy laborer of mixed race. A monument in pottery, Smooth Latin manners, Full of high-minded cunning and crafty sagacity.


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