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(Fuente de Tláloc, Mexico City) by Gordon Nicolson

(Fuente de Tláloc, Mexico City) by Gordon Nicolson

(Fuente de Tláloc, Mexico City)

Gordon Nicolson

Title

(Fuente de Tláloc, Mexico City)

 
Artist

Gordon Nicolson

  1891 - 1975 (biography)
Year
c. 1953  
Technique
photograph 
Image Size
16 x 19 15/16" image and paper 
Signature
artist's stamp verso 
Edition Size
not stated 
Annotations
ink titled, lower left 
Reference
 
Paper
 
State
 
Publisher
artist 
Inventory ID
19730 
Price
SOLD
Description

Photographed detail of Diego Rivera's mosaic fountain of the Aztec rain and fertility god Tlaloc. Created in the early 1950s when Rivera formulated a plan to improve Mexico City's municiple water system, the mosaic is situated at the head of the Lerma River, part of Chapultepec Park, where it leads out to the city's reservoirs. The masked face of Tlaloc emerges from an elaborately tiled pool measuring 100 feet across. His body takes up the majority of the pool and forms a running position, one leg outstretched, the other bent.

Diego Rivera's dream of using art and innovation to revitalize Mexico City's infrastructure never came to fruition and he died five years after this fountain was completed. After decades of disrepair, the fountain and its surrounding elements were fully restored. This photo was likely taken not long after the fountain's creation.