Art: Having a Good Time

When Diego Rivera went home from Paris in 1921, he saw his native Mexico more appreciatively. Particularly he cast a fresh eye on a primitive art that no one else seemed to care about. He journeyed into the Pacific Coast provinces west of Mexico City, and began picking up pieces of precious art for about a peso apiece.

Word got around among the Indians of the region that there was a wealthy painter willing to pay money for the oddities they plowed up in the fields or found in digging ditches. A steady stream of natives came to his door, bearing grotesque...

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