due to copyright, trademark or related rights.
Sugar Cane
José Diego María Rivera, Mexican, 1886 - 1957
Made in United States, North and Central America
Date:
1931Medium:
Fresco on cement, galvanized steel frameworkDimensions:
57 1/8 inches × 7 feet 10 1/8 inches (145.1 × 239.1 cm)Copyright:
© Banco de México Diego Rivera Frida Kahlo Museums Trust, Mexico, D.F. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New YorkCuratorial Department:
European PaintingAccession Number:
1943-46-2Credit Line:
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Herbert Cameron Morris, 1943
This fresco painting by Diego Rivera shows economic inequality on a plantation in the southern Mexican state of Morelos before the country’s revolution of 1910–20. In the foreground, an indigenous Indian woman with the distinctive braids and white clothing of a peasant, along with two children, harvests papaya fruits. In the middle- and background, men cut and carry heavy bundles of sugarcane as two foremen supervise. Rivera highlights racial characteristics to emphasize differences of social class between the workers, who have dark skin and hair, and the light-skinned blonde landowner who relaxes in a hammock on his porch, guard dogs at his side.
Rivera painted Sugar Cane and another work in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Liberation of the Peon (1943-46-1), on moveable supports of steel, cement, and plaster for presentation in his one-artist exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1931.
Explore the Collections
* Works in the collection are moved off view for many different reasons. Although gallery locations on the website are updated regularly, there is no guarantee that this object will be on display on the day of your visit.