The Cafe Terrace

Marius de Zayas’s own Mexican heritage might be partly responsible for his early interest in Diego Rivera. In October 1916, De Zayas offered his fellow countryman his first solo exhibition in the United States, juxtaposing about thirty of his paintings with a group of sculptures from ancient Mexico. Earlier that year, exemplifying the connections De Zayas drew between modernism and "ancient arts" (a category in which he included early American and African art), he had already included Rivera in a group exhibition of modern paintings, shown alongside three African works known only through minimal descriptions: "Mask Dahomey; Fetish Ogooue; Wood carving from Madagascar." This Cubist composition was featured with the African works in that first display. Its iconography alludes to both Rivera's Parisian life and his Mexican origins: a cigar box with a painted rendering of a Mexican farm scene is placed on a café table alongside a glass and a spoon intended for the consumption of absinthe.