This year, the MOMAS (Museum of Modern Art Saitama) in Saitama, Japan will be holding an exhibition for Diego Rivera and his contemporaries called Diego Rivera and his Contemporaries.   

The show will trace Rivera’s entire career, featuring 30 paintings, drawings and prints by Diego Rivera, as well as works by artists he worked with or had a connection to, such as Frida Kahlo, José Clemente Orozco, José María Velasco, AND Japanese artists such as Tsuguharu (Léonard) Foujita and Tamiji Kitagawa.

José María Velasco was a pioneer of the Mexican Renaissance movement, and taught Diego Rivera at the San Carlos Academy of Fine Arts in Mexico City, when Diego Rivera was first beginning his career as an artist. 

Tsuguharu (Léonard) Foujita was a Japanese-French artist born in Tokyo, who like Rivera worked with Pablo Picasso and other major European artists, fusing the art of his homeland with emerging, European themes, styles and aesthetics. 

Tamiji Kitagawa was also a Japanese born artist who moved to Mexico in 1923, where he befriended David Alfaro Siqueiros and Diego Rivera, and played a significant role in developing the Mexican Renaissance movement before moving back to Japan in 1936.

The show will be a fascinating chance to view works by Diego Rivera, and to see the connection he had with Japan.