Tehuana

Rosa Rolanda was born Rosemonde Cowan in the United States to a Scottish father and mother of Mexican descent. A dancer, actress, and photographer in addition to a painter, she met Miguel Covarrubias in New York in the nineteen-twenties, and the couple moved to Mexico in 1926. Through Covarrubias, whom she married in 1930, Rolanda became part of a circle of Mexican artists that included Diego Rivera, Frida Kalho, Roberto Montenegro, among others. Like Tina Modotti and Edward Weston, Rolanda was interested in photography. It was in the late nineteen- thirties that she began experimenting with painting, exploring an array of techniques in a style that combined elements of surrealism and the modern figuration characteristic of Mexican muralism. Rolanda’s preferred themes were popular celebrations and portraits. She claimed she painted only for pleasure, and she sold her work exclusively to her circle of friends; since she did not like exhibiting, her painterly facet was largely unknown. This 1940 canvas depicts a young Tehuana woman with large and attractive eyes clad in a huipil or dress used for Zapotec celebrations (the huipil was made famous around the world by Frida Kahlo, who wore them night and day).