Courtesy of www.DiegoRivera.org

Motherhood is a modernizing, Cubist treatment on a perennial art historical theme: the Madonna and Child. In this painting, Angelina Beloff, Rivera's common-law wife for twelve years, holds their newborn son, Diego, who died of influenza just months after his birth.

The painting beautifully illustrates Rivera's unique approach to Cubism, which rejected the somber, monochromatic palette deployed by artists such as Picasso or Georges Braque in favor of vivid colors more reminiscent of those used by Fauvism artist like Henri Matisse