The Contemporáneos Group: Rewriting Mexico in the Thirties and Forties

5: Guadalupe Mar

Introduction Guadalupe Marín is one of the most fascinating women of twentiethcentury Mexico. She is most famous because she was Diego Rivera’s first or second wife (depending on whether we include Angelina Beloff ) and by far his most important muse. After her Catholic marriage to Rivera (they never had a civil, legal marriage in Mexico), she wed Jorge Cuesta, a writer of the Contemporáneos group and one of the most complex personalities in Mexican artistic circles. Marín was more than anything else a celebrity (see Chapter 6). When she decided to publish two novels, no one took her seriously. She was Lupe, the scandalous woman with the beautiful body; but she was not an intellectual and could not be considered a serious writer. The fact that her first book contained autobiographical material helped neither her reputation nor her book’s reception. The “decent” society of Mexico thought it was in bad taste. She had never been a high-class lady, and her books corroborated this idea. In her article “Rosario Castellanos: ‘Ashes without a Face’ ” (1992), Debra Castillo says: “Let me begin with what is only a slightly hyperbolic statement: Latin American women do not write autobiography” (242). Lacking an autobiographical tradition, Marín resorted to the form of the novel to tell her version of a series of events which were mainly personal, although most of them had taken place in the public domain. From her perspective, we can better understand the development of the meaning of the Mexican patriarchy at the end of the caudillo period and the transition from Lázaro Cárdenas to Alemán Valdés, as 5  Guadalupe Marín The Madwoman in the Murals 05-T2335 11/5/02 2:21 PM Page 94 the radicalism and rhetoric of the Mexican Revolution were diminishing and leaning toward a pax of the bourgeoisie. Sylvia Molloy writes: One might say that, whereas there are and have been a good many autobiographies written in Spanish America, they have not always been read autobiographically . . . filtered through the dominant discourse of the day, they have been hailed either as history or as fiction, and rarely considered as occupying a space of their own. (1991: 2) This becomes an interesting statement once we begin the analysis of Guadalupe Marín’s La única (1938), because although it is a novel with significant autobiographical elements, in the end it has to be considered fictional. Marín neither dared nor knew how to write an autobiographical account about the part of her life that she felt had to be told. When a literary or artistic tradition does not exist, it is very difficult to be the first to create one. Frida Kahlo’s diary provides another good example of the difficulties Mexican women encountered when writing their autobiographies . Many people were disappointed when they first read Kahlo’s journal, which was not available until forty years after her death. They expected juicy gossip, lesbian affairs, and scandalous relationships but were instead confronted with pain, anguish, loneliness, scarce glimpses of happiness, and very few names. Kahlo became Diego Rivera’s wife after he divorced Guadalupe Marín. Evidently, Rivera was the seminal inspiration of female discourse. Beloff also wrote an autobiographical account about her years with Rivera (Memorias), a story that is also told by Elena Poniatowska in Querido Diego, te abraza Quiela (1987). The last chapter of this saga is Diego el Rojo (1997) by Guadalupe Rivera Marín, daughter of Rivera and Marín. When Guadalupe Marín entered the literary world in 1938, she was already a very famous and controversial woman, especially after her separation from Rivera in 1929. Later she married and then divorced the Contemporáneos poet Jorge Cuesta. At that time divorce was legal in Mexico but still carried a stigma for the divorced woman. Cuesta’s suicide did not help Marín’s cause. José Agustín writes: “Jorge Cuesta died in 1942, and his horrific death still terrifies the reader. The maestro emasculated himself, after having made sexual advances toward his sister (according to Elías Nandino)” (1990: 1:28).1 La única deals with this issue of incest, among other controversial topics. Lupe Marín’s presence was a must at many upper-class parties in Mexico City, particularly in artistic circles. She hosted tertulias at the beginning of the Contemporáneos movement, when the members found Guadalupe Marín: The Madwoman in the Murals  95 05-T2335...