This painting by Mexican artist Miguel Covarrubias champions "Mexican-ness," but in the framework of anthropological research on Zapotec culture. The indigenous woman in "Mujer de Tehuantepec" wearing a long flowing gray-black headscarf and dress with white ruffles, is carrying a woven basket, perhaps full of flowers, on her head; in her hand is a clay water pitcher. She stands in profile before a white multi-columned building that might be the city hall of Tehuantepec, Juchitán, or another city on the isthmus. Covarrubias produced many images of Tehuana women carrying flowers in containers and baskets using various techniques including painting, drawing, and woodcuts. In fact, an oil-on-linen version of this scene is in the the San Antonio Museum of Art (Texas) collection. Many Mexican artists active in the first decades of the twentieth century portrayed Tehuana women from Oaxaca, as well as women from other regions, wearing traditional Indigenous attire, which operated as a symbol of national identity. Diego Rivera painted many such images for, among other projects, the murals at the Secretaría de Educación Pública in Mexico City (1923–1928). Covarrubias, also known as José Miguel Covarrubias Duclaud, was a well-admired Mexican painter, caricaturist, illustrator, ethnologist and art historian. Along with his American colleague Matthew W. Stirling, he was the co-discoverer of the Olmec civilization. His style was highly influential in America, especially in the 1920s and 1930s, and his artwork and caricatures of influential politicians and artists were featured on the covers of The New Yorker and Vanity Fair.

Mujer de Tehuantepec (Woman from Tehuantepec) by Miguel Covarrubias (Mexican) - Gouache and watercolor on paper / 1945 - Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires (Argentina) #womeninart #art #gouache #watercolor #MiguelCovarrubias #Covarrubias #MALBA #womensart #IndigneousWoman #MexicanArt