Photographs

Photographs

View full screen - View 1 of Lot 10. NICKOLAS MURAY | SELECTED IMAGES INCLUDING PORTRAITS OF FRIDA KAHLO, DIEGO RIVERA AND MIGUEL COVARRUBIAS.

NICKOLAS MURAY | SELECTED IMAGES INCLUDING PORTRAITS OF FRIDA KAHLO, DIEGO RIVERA AND MIGUEL COVARRUBIAS

Auction Closed

April 5, 08:29 PM GMT

Estimate

30,000 - 50,000 USD

Lot Details

Description

NICKOLAS MURAY

1892-1965

SELECTED IMAGES INCLUDING PORTRAITS OF FRIDA KAHLO, DIEGO RIVERA AND MIGUEL COVARRUBIAS


a group of 78 photographs, each annotated by Mimi Muray, the photographer's daughter, in pencil on the reverse, 1925-46 (78)

Various sizes to 5 by 7 in. (12.7 by 17.8 cm.)

Acquired from the estate of the photographer, circa 1980

Adriana Williams, Covarrubias (Austin, 1994), pp. 94, 114-5, 118, 125, 134, 140, 163, 174, 184 

Salomon Grimberg, I Will Never Forget You (San Francisco, 2004), pp. 37-8, 72, 75, 89, 113-6

Kurt Heinzelman, The Covarrubias Circle: Nickolas Muray's Collection of Twentieth-Century Mexican Art (Austin, 2004), p. 23

The 78 photographs offered here, many of which have never before been published, represent the most significant offering of work by Nickolas Muray to appear at auction. These early prints feature both posed and candid portraits of the socialites, politicians, composers, and writers closely associated with artists Miguel Covarrubias, Frida Kahlo, and Diego Rivera. Notable sitters including Carl van Vechten, composer Carlos Chavez, Alfa Ríos Henestrosa, illustrator John Held, Jr., social realist artist Marian Greenwood, muralist Roberto Montenegro, actress Margo Albert, painter and writer Mai-Mai Sze, and Cristina Kahlo, Frida’s sister, pepper these photographs and provide fascinating insight into the cultural landscape of Mexico in the 1920s, 30s, and 40s.  


Muray, a prolific photographer for magazines such as Vanity Fair and Harper’s Bazaar, instantly became close with Mexican caricaturist, illustrator, and painter Miguel Covarrubias when they met in 1923. During his trips to Mexico visiting Covarrubias and his wife Rosa, Muray was introduced to their wide circle of friends, and it was through them that Muray first met Frida Kahlo, with whom he would have a decade-long affair beginning in 1931. 


Covarrubias began collecting indigenous Pre-Columbian art as a teenager, and both he and Muray shared a keen interest in Mexican painting, sculpture, and dance. Some of the photographs in the group offered here document sculpture (many pieces of which were part of Diego Rivera’s personal collection). Other images depict Muray’s countryside visits with indigenous artists and laborers who sold found artifacts to Rivera and his circle of friends.