ELIAS RIVERA PROJECT OVERVIEW
ELIAS RIVERA
Railyard Arts District | 1613 Paseo de Peralta | Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 | 505.988.3250 lewallengalleries.com | contact@lewallengalleries.com
cover: Sun and Shadows, 2000, oil on canvas, 80 x 68 inches, SOLD
Elias Rivera
LewAllen Galleries has long admired the exquisite artistry of paintings by the great American figural painter Elias Rivera. Our gallery is pleased to announce that it is now engaged in a major project to restore the rightful place in the art market for this extraordinary artist’s work. We are inviting consignments of major paintings from collectors who are wanting to deaccession works, and we are already successfully placing paintings with new owners at values appropriate to the distinctive quality of Rivera’s works. Consistent with our gallery’s education-based mission, this project is founded on informing our clients about Rivera’s truly exceptional abilities as a painter–his methods and techniques, his phenomenal artistic sensibility, and his superb eye that helped him capture the intrinsic nobility and dignity of his subjects.
LewAllen Galleries has been appointed the exclusive representative of the Elias Rivera Estate. We are appreciative that his widow, Susan Contreras, has agreed to act as an advisor for us, as we plan initiatives to educate collectors regarding Rivera’s successful career that spanned half a century. Rivera’s journey took him from New York to Santa Fe, Mexico, Guatemala, and Bhutan, always working with a deep empathy for the human soul.
As collectors of his works know, throughout his career, Rivera was a student of the human condition, and he captured the humanity of his subjects with exemplary beauty. Beginning with sketching people on subway trains, in bars, and airports in New York City, he created striking, largely monochromatic paintings. After moving to Santa Fe in 1982, he became a true maestro of radiant color that resonated
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and magnified the brilliance of the scenes he captures on canvas. We plan to educate art enthusiasts about the exciting history of Rivera’s work and explain its critical importance to understanding the value of this great artist’s paintings.
As a part of this process, we will also draw comparisons of Rivera’s lush canvases to those of Old Masters and celebrated Renaissance artists. Part of this comparison is made possible because of Rivera’s use of the unusual painting medium called maroger which is thought to have been last used during the Renaissance but lost until its rediscovery in the 1940s. Maroger is known as an “Old Master medium” and is made by a complex method using a combination of exotic ingredients to produce a fast-drying gel to which pigments are added. This laborious procedure results in a paint that makes for the glowing, highly finished surface qualities uniquely associated with Rivera’s works–reminiscent of those of artists such as Caravaggio and Veronese.
Our objective in cultivating a heightened awareness of the importance of the work of Elias Rivera includes presenting this kind of educational information and hopefully animating an appreciation of how a notable figure such as Rivera fits in the context of art history. Apart from any art historical reference, it is apparent that the superlative quality of Rivera’s paintings is what self-evidently makes them special–their luminosity and uncanny ability to strike a gripping chord of human connection between subject and viewer that is both profound and respectful. These are works of a man who cares deeply about beauty, his subjects, and presenting their humanity with a compassion that is powerful and infectious. Rivera called himself a “people painter,” and it is clear why in 2004 he was awarded the prestigious New Mexico Governor’s Award. It is with abundant joy that we set about expanding the market for the work of this significant artist.
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Almolonga #2, 2002
Oil on canvas, 40 x 30 inches SOLD
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Untitled, 2008 Oil on canvas, 60 x 84 inches
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Sun and Shadows, 2000 Oil on canvas, 80 x 68 inches SOLD
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The Basket of Life, 2002 Oil on canvas, 68 x 80 inches
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Flowers of the Mind #5, 2002 Oil on canvas, 50 x 60 inches
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Under Her Wing, 2000 Oil on canvas, 48 x 36 inches SOLD
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The Earth Provides, 2003 Oil on canvas, 48 x 36 inches
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Three Generations, n.d. Oil on canvas, 84 x 42 inches
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Market in Todos Santos, Guatemala, n.d. Oil on panel, 12 x 10 inches
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Oaxaca Midday Break, n.d. Oil on canvas, 36.25 x 48 inches
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Baptismal Saturday, n.d. Oil on canvas, 16 x 20 inches
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Airport (triptych), c. 1960 Oil on panel, 8.25 x 38.75 inches
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Subway #2, 1975
Oil on canvas, 16 x 20 inches
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Portrait of Peru #19, 2000 Oil on board, 10 x 8 inches SOLD
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Untitled (Woman with Beret), n.d. Oil on canvas, 16 x 20 inches
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Railyard Arts District | 1613 Paseo de Peralta | Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 | 505.988.3250 www.lewallengalleries.com | contact@lewallengalleries.com © 2022 LewAllen Galleries Artwork © Estate of Elias Rivera