ELIAS RIVERA
Radiance of the Anonymous
The paintings of renowned Santa Fe painter Elias Rivera (1937-2019), capture the intimate details of daily life in Latin America’s varied cultures. His works in oil employ the techniques of the old masters, utilizing the chiaroscuro characteristic of Caravaggio’s paintings and intentionality of color akin to Vermeer. Rich, vibrant color, narrative-driven composition, and polished technique distinguish Rivera’s oeuvre. His works express the drama of everyday life, and imbue their subjects with an intrinsic nobility. Widely regarded for his deft representations of the indigenous communities of Mexico and Latin America, Rivera’s paintings reveal the humanity and dignity he witnessed on his trips South.
ELIAS RIVERA
ELIAS RIVERA Radiance of the Anonymous
The magnificent paintings of Elias Rivera (19372019), brought forward into the second half of the 20th century and the first two decades of the 21st century, have exquisite painting qualities and sensibilities of classicism, with their Greek frieze-like composition and Renaissance techniques and traditions. In these strikingly beautiful, highly chromatic oil on canvas or board paintings, rendered much as his 15th and 16th century forebears might have done, Rivera became famous for sublimely capturing the timeless dignity of humankind.
Perhaps best illustrated in his portraits and multi-figure narrative paintings of ordinary people in everyday life in Mexico and Latin America, Rivera’s imagery bespeaks a quiet sense of grandeur and visual drama that is forcefully unlike anything presented in most contemporary painting today or recent times. Its artistic identity is unique in its devotion to the human figure as the sole hero of each work and the means by which Rivera brings a sense of individual inner life to each person. Rich vibrant colors carry emotional charge and exquisite painting technique reveals the stoicism, dignity and personality suggested by the artist in his portrayal of his subjects.
Rivera’s striking paintings are renowned for elevating a wider cultural consciousness of the peasants in remote places of the Mexican mountains and Guatemalan highlands who live lives that in many ways remain frozen in time. In certain respects, those lives possess aspects of the Arcadian – the romantic idyllic vision of pastoral harmony with nature and a simpler unspoiled life in balance with the environment. Yet, those people live in relative poverty and exist mainly without the conveniences of modern life. But in his paintings, Rivera eloquently presents what he saw as he saw it without embellishment or enhancement, distilling in his works the essence of daily life in these Indigenous communities. His paintings evince his awe of the figures selling their produce, appearing in market scenes, and ritual festivals, clad in distinctive traditional colorful attire. In these paintings of their cultural traditions that persist little changed over centuries despite exposure to the contemporary world there is a natural and inspiring grace.
These works are regarded for their intimacy, purity of vision, and ability to impart a majestic sense of intrinsic nobility and dignity of their human subjects. Rivera always worked with a deep empathy
for the people he painted. Unlike Michelangelo, for example, who filled his work with depictions of idealized and perfected images of humanity, Rivera painted the world around him just as it is and created profound beauty through the exploration of people in ordinary life. In this regard, Rivera’s work shares a version of naturalism with what, at the time, was the radical ideas of Caravaggio who painted figures of real people, right down to the dirt on the soles of kneeling shepherds’ feet, in an effort to convey a similar sense of genuine and profound content that Rivera sought in his own work.
And like Caravaggio’s, Rivera’s works often depict a moment in time in which a figure’s expression of emotion is captured and made a singular part of the success of the work. Herein also lies the allure of the many small portraits painted by Rivera that have been admired for their clarity of form, composition, and expression of human empathy. Critics have noted that Rivera’s genius will stand with that of Caravaggio, Vermeer, Rembrandt, Gentileschi, among other great Masters with whose work there is a discernible common thread of sensibility that runs through and suggests a coherent relationship that exists among them. In part, this comparison
is made possible because of Rivera’s use of the unusual painting medium called maroger which is thought to have been used during the Renaissance but lost until its rediscovery in the 1940s. Maroger is made by a difficult process using a combination of exotic ingredients to produce a fast-drying gel to which pigments are added and makes for the glowing and highly finished surface qualities uniquely associated with Rivera’s works, reminiscent of those of artists such as Caravaggio and Veronese.
But far more than owing just to material, Rivera’s kinship with the Masters is earned from his extraordinary technical virtuosity and his remarkable aesthetic sensibility, and humble intuitive capacity to perceive the nobility, dignity and humanity found in all people and convey that in his radiant paintings.
- Kenneth R.
Marvel
Above: Detail of Chi Chi Castenango, 1994, oil on canvas, 48” x 72”
Chi Chi Castenango 1994, oil on canvas, 48” x 72”
Blue Blanket
1994, oil on linen, 70” x 52.25”
Untitled (#16) n.d., oil on panel, 12” x 10”
Shepherd 2011, oil on canvas, 47.75” x 36”
Portraits of Peru #15 2000, oil on board, 10” x 8”
Untitled (Woman in Traditional Garb) n.d., oil on board, 14” x 11 Untitled (#16)
Untitled (Woman with Beret) n.d., oil on canvas, 16” x 20”
Untitled (Woman Thinking) n.d., oil on canvas on board, 12” x 9”
Portraits of Peru #23 2003, oil on board, 10” x 8”
Untitled (#16) n.d., oil on panel, 12” x 10”
Passing Moments #1 2006, oil on panel, 20” x 16”
Elias Rivera 1937-2019 | b. 1937, Bronx, NY
EDUCATION
1953-54 Industrial Arts, Manhattan, NY
1955-61 Art Students League, New York City, NY
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2024 In Praise of Those Who Endure, LewAllen Galleries, Santa Fe, NM
2023 From the Thread of Time, LewAllen Galleries, Santa Fe, NM
2006 Museum of Fine Arts, Santa Fe, NM
National Hispanic Cultural Center, Albuquerque, NM
Riva Yares Gallery, Santa Fe, NM
2005 Surface, Exhibit 51, Albuquerque, NM
National Small Format Invitational, Exhibit 51, Albuquerque, NM
The Miniature Show, Albuquerque Museum, Albuquerque, NM
Cacciola Gallery, New York City, NY
2003 Guatemala Revisited, Riva Yares Gallery, Santa Fe, NM
The Other Side of the Street, Oklahoma City Museum of Art, Oklahoma City, OK
2002 Artists of the Ideal: Nuovo Classicismo, Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Verona, Italy
Ahora: New Mexican Hispanic Art, National Hispanic Cultural Center, Albuquerque, NM
The Miniature Show, Albuquerque Museum, Albuquerque, NM
2001 The Miniature Show, Albuquerque Museum, Albuquerque, NM
2000 The Americas: Central & South, Riva Yares Gallery, Santa Fe, NM and Scottsdale, AZ
A New Mexico Influence, Art in Embassies, Madrid, Spain
The Miniature Show, Albuquerque Museum, Albuquerque, NM
1999 The Human Fabric, Riva Yares Gallery, Santa Fe, NM
The City Series–Taos, Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, Cedar Rapids, IA
1997 San Francisco el Alto, Riva Yares Gallery, Santa Fe, NM
1996 Elias Rivera: Retrospective, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY
1995 Visions of Solola, Riva Yares Gallery, Santa Fe, NM and Scottsdale, AZ
1993 Cacciola Gallery, New York City, NY
The Americas: A Latin Connection, Nevada Institute of Contemporary Art, Las Vegas, NV
The Miniature Show, Albuquerque Museum, Albuquerque, NM
1992 Ventanas: Visiones Culturales / Contemporary Hispanic Art, Plains Museum, Moorehead, MN
University Art Museum, Northrup Gallery, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN
The Miniature Show, Albuquerque Museum, Albuquerque, NM
1991 The Miniature Show, Albuquerque Museum, Albuquerque, NM
1990 Munson Gallery, Santa Fe, NM
Hispanic Invitational Show, Partners Gallery, Bethesda, MD
Lizardi & Harp, Pasadena, CA
1988 Munson Gallery, Santa Fe, NM
1987 E. S. Lawrence Gallery, Taos, NM
1986 Georgetown Gallery, Washington, D.C. Munson Gallery, Santa Fe, NM
1985 Center for Contemporary Art, Santa Fe, NM E. S. Lawrence Gallery, Taos, NM
1984 Santa Fe Festival of the Arts, Santa Fe, NM Munson Gallery, Santa Fe, NM
1983 Santa Fe Festival of the Arts, Santa Fe, NM
1980 Harbor Gallery, Cold Spring Harbor, NY
1978 American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, New York City, NY
Hassam and Speicher Fund Purchase Prize
Allied Artists, New York City, NY
David Humphrey Memorial Award
1977 National Academy, New York City, NY
Harbor Gallery, Cold Spring Harbor, NY
1975 Harbor Gallery, Cold Spring Harbor, NY
1974 Kenmore Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
Allied Artists, New York City, NY, Gold Medal
1973 National Academy, New York City, NY
Henry W. Ranger Purchase Prize
1971 Quintana Gallery, Nantucket, MA
Park Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
Allied Artists, New York City, NY
1970 Harbor Gallery, Cold Spring Harbor, NY
Cordiner Gallery, East Hampton, NY
1969 Brooklyn Museum, Community Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
Glaisek Gallery, Provincetown, MA
1968 Glaisek Gallery, Provincetown, MA
Kenmore Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
1965 Lincoln Institute Gallery, New York City, NY
Harbor Gallery, Cold Spring Harbor, NY
