GENERAL DESCRIPTION
When the Stewart Company commissioned Miguel Covarrubias to design a mosaic mural for their Dallas office building in 1953, their selection was influenced both by the enduring popularity of Mexican muralists in the United States and by the artist’s acclaimed career. Although an accomplished muralist, Covarrubias is perhaps most famous for his political and social caricatures from the 1930s and 40s.
For scholars of indigenous peoples on multiple continents, Covarrubias’s contributions came from his work as an author and archaeologist. His expansive research on historic cultures of Central and North America is evident in the variety of myths and symbols included in this monumental scene of natural forces in balance. In its combination of multiple disparate cultural symbols, Genesis, the Gift of Life produces a universal vision of creation, renewal, and commonality.
Adapted from
México 1900–1950, Label text, 2017.
NOTES
- Long-term loan
- Notes taken from materials found in Education file.
- Add executed by: Francesco De Min (Mosaicos Italianos), Mexico City
- Shipped (and installed?) by Cavallini Brothers (San Antonio, immigrated from Italy)
- The Stewart Co- was the TX distributor of Ford Motor Company's tractors and farm implements.
- THIS NOTE BEGAN WHILE WRITING LABEL FOR MEXICO 1900-1950
- Social progress, optimism-- metaphors of a mythic past and dreams of future social change; a unified intent that calmed political differences and pursued national consciousness.
- follows tradition of comparative cultural analysis- popular in 1950s
- Homage to archetypes analyzed by Karl Jung
- Creation myths of the Aztecs
- Four previous worlds- water, earth, fire, and air-- the fifth world brought elements into balance
- Waldo Stewart chose the Genesis verse "to appear on the opening program"
- Covarrubias wrote about the mural-- incorporate myths from Pueblo peoples of southwest, Hopewell, Mayas, Toltecs, Aztecs, Andean peoples-- all followed cult of nature= Earth and Sky, Water and Fire, the Sun, the Moon, the Stars...
- Iconography read from left to right
- Explains theme for the mural in publication (original source not shown on photocopy but this could be what was handed out at the original installation ceremony
- Original design in oils 7.5 x 34 inches; enlarged to 13 x 67 feet.
- 1950s- muralists want to make murals for outside and see mosaics as a way to make durable murals, synthesis of architecture and painting.
- COVARRUBIAS- 22 November 1904- 4 February 1957
- b. Mexico City, died Mexico City?
- Arrive in NYC 1924, married Rosa Rolanda (b. Rosamonde Cowen) 1930 (travel to south pacific 1930 and 1933)
- 1940- co-curate with Rene d'Harnoncourt, 20 Centuries of mexican Art at MoMA.
- 1942- return to Mexico and begin formal excavations of Tlatilco
- 1951- lived in suburb of Tizapan (according to Virginia Stewart, 45 Contemporary Mexican Artists; another source says this was his father's house, where Miguel grew up, purchased after his dad died in 1936)
- 1940s and 1950s- painted several murals in Mexico City and published his studies on PreColumbian and MesoAmerican art. Focused on his archaeological work, made significant contributions to the study of the Olmec civilization and collected Olmec objects.
- Head of the Department of Dance at the National Institute of Fine Arts in Mexico City, Director of the National Academy of Dance
- Teaches in School of Anthropology at the University of Mexico
- Director of the Department of Museography
- Miguel Covarrubias (1904-1957) extended/group label (draft for exhibition wall text)
- Miguel Covarrubias was a multifaceted artist interested in ethnology and sociology. He studied indigenous populations in Mexico and other places such as the Dutch East Indies. As an artist, he is known for his political and social cartoons for different magazines in New York, among them Vanity Fair and the New Yorker. He also played an important role in the dissemination of Mexican art in the United Sates as curator of modern art in the Twenty Centuries of Mexican Art exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1940.
- Famous for map murals "Pageant of the Pacific" for the Golden Gate International Exposisiton at San Francisco 1939.
- Mexico 1900-1950- catalogue draft:
- CAT. 95
- Miguel Covarrubias
- Mexican, 1904–1957
- Genesis, the Gift of Life
- Génesis, el regalo de la vida
- 1954
- Glass mosaic, Venetian glass technique, 364.2 x 1747.2 cm
- City of Dallas, Gift of Peter and Waldo Stewart and the Stewart Company, 1992
- [Exhibition includes examples of his political and social caricatures (1928-1940s)]
Catalogue essays
Artist/designers
Covarrubias_Miguel: ULAN: 500122721
Cultures
Geography
Mexico (nation): TGN: 7005560
Mexico City (Mexico): TGN: 7007227
Dallas (Texas/United States): TGN: 7013503
HKS Inc. (HKS Associates / American architectural firm): ULAN: 500214437
- place of origin- Mexico City
- original installation- west side of The Stewart Company Building, on North Central Expressway, Dallas- designed by Smith and Mills (later HKS Associates) and won an architectural award from Dallas AIA; dedicated in January 1955; dismantled 1992 and laid in the sculpture garden until new building completed?
Process/materials
mosaic glass (glass by technique): AAT: 300260731
mosaic (process): AAT: 300138684
glass (material): AAT: 300010797
glass decorating techniques: AAT: 300155502
Venetian glass: AAT: 300136735
Historical periods
Individuals
Subject terms
mosaics (visual works): AAT: 300015342
caricatures: AAT: 300015634
political art: AAT: 300256621
symbol: AAT: 300055878
moon: AAT: 300386951
myth: AAT: 300201023
mythology (literary genre): AAT: 300055985
creation (doctrinal concept): AAT: 300069002
archetype (concepts): DMA
Jung_Carl Gustav (Karl Jung): ULAN: 500320294
water: AAT: 300011772
earth (features): AAT: 300404893
earth (soil): AAT: 300011734
fires (events): AAT: 300068986
air (material): AAT: 300213004
clouds: AAT: 300343840
rain (precipitation / weather): AAT: 300055377
mythical or legendary beings: AAT: 300375725
seas: AAT: 300008694
creatures: AAT: 300379697
serpents (snakes/Serpentes suborder): AAT: 300250870
rainbows (motifs): DMA
wheat (plants/genus): AAT: 300343825
maize (plant/zea mays species): AAT: 300375398
citrus fruits: AAT: 300266420
suns (stars): AAT: 300379806
conch (shell): AAT: 300210304
sunflowers (flowers/plants/helianthus genus): AAT: 300404749
cotton (fiber): AAT: 300183670
hands (animal or human components): AAT: 300310193
mica (mineral): AAT: 300011124
Hopewell (deserted settlement / Ohio): TGN: 2398880
oak (wood): AAT: 300012264
acorn: AAT: 300251844
red oak (wood): AAT: 300012311
Quetzalcoatl (Quetzalcóatl / Kukulcan / Mesoamerican deity / feathered serpent): DMA
duality (concepts): DMA
sky: AAT: 300263064
lightning: AAT: 300068795
Toltec (Central Plateau Mesoamerican styles): AAT: 300017032
Tlaltecuhtli (Mesoamerican deity / "earth lord"): DMA
Hopi: AAT: 300017763
kachina / katsina dolls (figurines): AAT: 300211323
shell (animal material): AAT: 300011829
jade (rock): AAT: 300011119
beads (pierced objects): AAT: 300234006
motifs: AAT: 300009700
murals: AAT: 300182732
palace (official residence): AAT: 300005734
Tepantitla (inhabited place / Mexico): TGN: 7411997
Tepantitla (compound / Teotihuacán): DMA
Tetitla (compound / Teotihuacán): DMA
Teotihuacán (deserted settlement): TGN: 7007218
Teotihuacán: AAT: 300017031
El Tajín: TGN: 7007143
Classic Veracruz styles: AAT: 300017056
God B (Chac / Chak / Chaak / Chac-Xib-Chac / Maya deity of rain and lightning): DMA
Cocijo (Cosijo / Zapotec deity of rain and lightning): DMA
Tlaloc (Mesoamerican / Aztec deity of rain and lightning): DMA
Maya: AAT: 300017826
Zapotec (culture or style): AAT: 300017179
Navajo: AAT: 300017740
sand painting (technique): AAT: 300375711
anthropomorphic: AAT: 300010335
Natseelit (Navajo deity / Rainbow Goddess): DMA
flames: AAT: 300009910
Xiuhtecuhtli (Xuitecuhtli / Aztec fire deity): DMA
authors: AAT: 300025492
archaeology (social sciences): AAT: 300054328
nature: AAT: 300179372
balance (composition concept): AAT: 300056247
culture: AAT: 300055768
RELATED OBJECTS
PROVENANCE
AUDIO ASSETS
VIDEO ASSETS
IMAGE ASSETS
WEB RESOURCES
ARCHIVAL RESOURCES
FUN FACTS
- Shipped by the Cavallini Brothers (San Antonio) in square meter slabs face down.
- As a teenager, Covarrubias hung around muralists working in Mexico City, and they nicknamed him "El Chamaco" (kid, boy). He sketched them while they worked, perfecting his talent for caricature.
- Covarrubias and Rosa's house in Tizapán welcomed international celebrities including: Diego Rivera, Georgia O'Keeffe, Orson Welles, Merce Cunningham, Luis Buñuel, John Huston, Amelia Earhart, Nelson Rockefeller, and Henri Cartier-Bresson.
TEACHING IDEAS
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General Description
When the Stewart Company commissioned Miguel Covarrubias to design a mosaic mural for their Dallas office building in 1953, their selection was influenced both by the enduring popularity of Mexican muralists in the United States and by the artist’s acclaimed career. Although an accomplished muralist, Covarrubias is perhaps most famous for his political and social caricatures from the 1930s and 40s.
For scholars of indigenous peoples on multiple continents, Covarrubias’s contributions came from his work as an author and archaeologist. His expansive research on historic cultures of Central and North America is evident in the variety of myths and symbols included in this monumental scene of natural forces in balance. In its combination of multiple disparate cultural symbols, Genesis, the Gift of Life produces a universal vision of creation, renewal, and commonality.
Adapted from
México 1900–1950, Label text, 2017.
Fun Facts
- Shipped by the Cavallini Brothers (San Antonio) in square meter slabs face down.
- As a teenager, Covarrubias hung around muralists working in Mexico City, and they nicknamed him "El Chamaco" (kid, boy). He sketched them while they worked, perfecting his talent for caricature.
- Covarrubias and Rosa's house in Tizapán welcomed international celebrities including: Diego Rivera, Georgia O'Keeffe, Orson Welles, Merce Cunningham, Luis Buñuel, John Huston, Amelia Earhart, Nelson Rockefeller, and Henri Cartier-Bresson.
Archival Resources
Web Resources
Notes
- Long-term loan
- Notes taken from materials found in Education file.
- Add executed by: Francesco De Min (Mosaicos Italianos), Mexico City
- Shipped (and installed?) by Cavallini Brothers (San Antonio, immigrated from Italy)
- The Stewart Co- was the TX distributor of Ford Motor Company's tractors and farm implements.
- THIS NOTE BEGAN WHILE WRITING LABEL FOR MEXICO 1900-1950
- Social progress, optimism-- metaphors of a mythic past and dreams of future social change; a unified intent that calmed political differences and pursued national consciousness.
- follows tradition of comparative cultural analysis- popular in 1950s
- Homage to archetypes analyzed by Karl Jung
- Creation myths of the Aztecs
- Four previous worlds- water, earth, fire, and air-- the fifth world brought elements into balance
- Waldo Stewart chose the Genesis verse "to appear on the opening program"
- Covarrubias wrote about the mural-- incorporate myths from Pueblo peoples of southwest, Hopewell, Mayas, Toltecs, Aztecs, Andean peoples-- all followed cult of nature= Earth and Sky, Water and Fire, the Sun, the Moon, the Stars...
- Iconography read from left to right
- Explains theme for the mural in publication (original source not shown on photocopy but this could be what was handed out at the original installation ceremony
- Original design in oils 7.5 x 34 inches; enlarged to 13 x 67 feet.
- 1950s- muralists want to make murals for outside and see mosaics as a way to make durable murals, synthesis of architecture and painting.
- COVARRUBIAS- 22 November 1904- 4 February 1957
- b. Mexico City, died Mexico City?
- Arrive in NYC 1924, married Rosa Rolanda (b. Rosamonde Cowen) 1930 (travel to south pacific 1930 and 1933)
- 1940- co-curate with Rene d'Harnoncourt, 20 Centuries of mexican Art at MoMA.
- 1942- return to Mexico and begin formal excavations of Tlatilco
- 1951- lived in suburb of Tizapan (according to Virginia Stewart, 45 Contemporary Mexican Artists; another source says this was his father's house, where Miguel grew up, purchased after his dad died in 1936)
- 1940s and 1950s- painted several murals in Mexico City and published his studies on PreColumbian and MesoAmerican art. Focused on his archaeological work, made significant contributions to the study of the Olmec civilization and collected Olmec objects.
- Head of the Department of Dance at the National Institute of Fine Arts in Mexico City, Director of the National Academy of Dance
- Teaches in School of Anthropology at the University of Mexico
- Director of the Department of Museography
- Miguel Covarrubias (1904-1957) extended/group label (draft for exhibition wall text)
- Miguel Covarrubias was a multifaceted artist interested in ethnology and sociology. He studied indigenous populations in Mexico and other places such as the Dutch East Indies. As an artist, he is known for his political and social cartoons for different magazines in New York, among them Vanity Fair and the New Yorker. He also played an important role in the dissemination of Mexican art in the United Sates as curator of modern art in the Twenty Centuries of Mexican Art exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1940.
- Famous for map murals "Pageant of the Pacific" for the Golden Gate International Exposisiton at San Francisco 1939.
- Mexico 1900-1950- catalogue draft:
- CAT. 95
- Miguel Covarrubias
- Mexican, 1904–1957
- Genesis, the Gift of Life
- Génesis, el regalo de la vida
- 1954
- Glass mosaic, Venetian glass technique, 364.2 x 1747.2 cm
- City of Dallas, Gift of Peter and Waldo Stewart and the Stewart Company, 1992
- [Exhibition includes examples of his political and social caricatures (1928-1940s)]
Catalogue essays
Artist/designers
Covarrubias_Miguel: ULAN: 500122721
Cultures
Geography
Mexico (nation): TGN: 7005560
Mexico City (Mexico): TGN: 7007227
Dallas (Texas/United States): TGN: 7013503
HKS Inc. (HKS Associates / American architectural firm): ULAN: 500214437
- place of origin- Mexico City
- original installation- west side of The Stewart Company Building, on North Central Expressway, Dallas- designed by Smith and Mills (later HKS Associates) and won an architectural award from Dallas AIA; dedicated in January 1955; dismantled 1992 and laid in the sculpture garden until new building completed?
Process/materials
mosaic glass (glass by technique): AAT: 300260731
mosaic (process): AAT: 300138684
glass (material): AAT: 300010797
glass decorating techniques: AAT: 300155502
Venetian glass: AAT: 300136735
Historical periods
Individuals
Subject terms
mosaics (visual works): AAT: 300015342
caricatures: AAT: 300015634
political art: AAT: 300256621
symbol: AAT: 300055878
moon: AAT: 300386951
myth: AAT: 300201023
mythology (literary genre): AAT: 300055985
creation (doctrinal concept): AAT: 300069002
archetype (concepts): DMA
Jung_Carl Gustav (Karl Jung): ULAN: 500320294
water: AAT: 300011772
earth (features): AAT: 300404893
earth (soil): AAT: 300011734
fires (events): AAT: 300068986
air (material): AAT: 300213004
clouds: AAT: 300343840
rain (precipitation / weather): AAT: 300055377
mythical or legendary beings: AAT: 300375725
seas: AAT: 300008694
creatures: AAT: 300379697
serpents (snakes/Serpentes suborder): AAT: 300250870
rainbows (motifs): DMA
wheat (plants/genus): AAT: 300343825
maize (plant/zea mays species): AAT: 300375398
citrus fruits: AAT: 300266420
suns (stars): AAT: 300379806
conch (shell): AAT: 300210304
sunflowers (flowers/plants/helianthus genus): AAT: 300404749
cotton (fiber): AAT: 300183670
hands (animal or human components): AAT: 300310193
mica (mineral): AAT: 300011124
Hopewell (deserted settlement / Ohio): TGN: 2398880
oak (wood): AAT: 300012264
acorn: AAT: 300251844
red oak (wood): AAT: 300012311
Quetzalcoatl (Quetzalcóatl / Kukulcan / Mesoamerican deity / feathered serpent): DMA
duality (concepts): DMA
sky: AAT: 300263064
lightning: AAT: 300068795
Toltec (Central Plateau Mesoamerican styles): AAT: 300017032
Tlaltecuhtli (Mesoamerican deity / "earth lord"): DMA
Hopi: AAT: 300017763
kachina / katsina dolls (figurines): AAT: 300211323
shell (animal material): AAT: 300011829
jade (rock): AAT: 300011119
beads (pierced objects): AAT: 300234006
motifs: AAT: 300009700
murals: AAT: 300182732
palace (official residence): AAT: 300005734
Tepantitla (inhabited place / Mexico): TGN: 7411997
Tepantitla (compound / Teotihuacán): DMA
Tetitla (compound / Teotihuacán): DMA
Teotihuacán (deserted settlement): TGN: 7007218
Teotihuacán: AAT: 300017031
El Tajín: TGN: 7007143
Classic Veracruz styles: AAT: 300017056
God B (Chac / Chak / Chaak / Chac-Xib-Chac / Maya deity of rain and lightning): DMA
Cocijo (Cosijo / Zapotec deity of rain and lightning): DMA
Tlaloc (Mesoamerican / Aztec deity of rain and lightning): DMA
Maya: AAT: 300017826
Zapotec (culture or style): AAT: 300017179
Navajo: AAT: 300017740
sand painting (technique): AAT: 300375711
anthropomorphic: AAT: 300010335
Natseelit (Navajo deity / Rainbow Goddess): DMA
flames: AAT: 300009910
Xiuhtecuhtli (Xuitecuhtli / Aztec fire deity): DMA
authors: AAT: 300025492
archaeology (social sciences): AAT: 300054328
nature: AAT: 300179372
balance (composition concept): AAT: 300056247
culture: AAT: 300055768
RELATED OBJECTS
PROVENANCE
AUDIO ASSETS
VIDEO ASSETS
source file
object_notes_2_d-0451.xml.nores