  About the Artwork
  
  
  Roberto Montenegro captured one of the most celebrated Mexican folk costumes in this painting. Six women stare directly at the viewer, faces ringed with white cotton halos created by the collars of a garment called the huipil grande. Modern artists embraced this large overdress, made and worn by the women of Tehuantepec in southern Mexico, as an expression of that region’s cultural heritage. Diego Rivera traveled to Tehuantepec to paint, and Frida Kahlo made several self-portraits wearing the huipil grande.

This choice of subject reflects an essential aspect of Montenegro’s philosophy. In 1940, he wrote, “our folk art, in every period, has served as a true symbol of the artistic instincts of the Mexican people.”
  
  
  Title
  Untitled (Tehuanas in Huipil Grande Headdresses)
  
  
  Artwork Date
  ca. 1940
  
  Artist
  Roberto Montenegro
  
  
  
  Life Dates
  1885 - 1968
  
  
  
  
  Nationality
  
  
  
  Please note:
  Definitions for nationality may vary significantly, depending on chronology and world events.
  Some definitions include:
  Belonging to a people having a common origin based on a geography and/or descent and/or tradition and/or culture and/or religion and/or language, or sharing membership in a legally defined nation.
  
  
  
  Mexican
  
  
  
  Culture
  
  
  
  Please note:
  Cultures may be defined by the language, customs, religious beliefs, social norms, and material traits of a group.
  
  
  
  
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  Medium
  Oil on canvas
  
  
  Dimensions
  Unframed: 36 1/8 × 30 inches (91.8 × 76.2 cm)
  Framed: 44 × 37 × 3 1/4 inches (111.8 × 94 × 8.3 cm)
  
  
  Classification
  Paintings
  
  
  Department
  American Art before 1950
  
  
  Credit
  Museum Purchase, Hill Memorial Fund
  
  
  
  Accession Number
  
  
  
  This unique number is assigned to an individual artwork as part of the cataloguing process at the time of entry into the permanent collection.
  Most frequently, accession numbers begin with the year in which the artwork entered the museum’s holdings.
  For example, 2008.3 refers to the year of acquisition and notes that it was the 3rd of that year. The DIA has a few additional systems—no longer assigned—that identify specific donors or museum patronage groups.
  
  
  
  2019.99
  
  
  Copyright
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