cover image Diego Rivera: His World and Ours

Diego Rivera: His World and Ours

Duncan Tonatiuh. Abrams, $16.95 (40p) ISBN 978-0-8109-9731-8

Suggestive of stained glass windows, Tonatiuh's mixed-media collages combine ancient Mexican art motifs with blocky, stylized figures, to pay tribute to this versatile artist. Rivera paired classical and modern techniques with traditional Mexican aesthetics to create socially and politically relevant murals. Tonatiuh invites readers to speculate about what Rivera might paint if he were alive today%E2%80%94"would he paint students at their desks... just as he painted factory workers in the production line?"%E2%80%94while creating vignettes whose symmetries draw further connections between past and present. Tonatiuh's biography celebrates Rivera, but focuses on the inspiration driving artistic expression in his time and in our own. Ages 5%E2%80%939. (May)