Rosa Rolanda (Rosemonde Cowan; Rose Rolando; Mrs. Miguel Covarrubias; September 6, 1895 – March 25, 1970) was an American multidisciplinary artist, dancer, and choreographer.

Biography

Rolanda was born in

Azusa, California Azusa (Tongva language, Tongva: ''Asuksa-nga'') is a city in the San Gabriel Valley, at the foot of the San Gabriel Mountains in Los Angeles County, California, United States, located 20 miles east of Downtown Los Angeles, downtown Los Angeles. ...

, in 1895. Her father, Henry Charles Cowan, was an engineer and her mother, Guadalupe Ruelas, was of Mexican descent. Rolanda began her artistic career in New York in 1916 as a celebrated dancer in Broadway revues. Rolanda’s debut was performed to Shubert’s Over the Top, which sparked a continued dance career throughout the 1920s. After a tour in Europe with the Ziegfeld Follies dance troupe, Rolanda performed in the musical Around the Town. It was soon after while working on Garrick Gaieties, that Rolanda met Miguel Covarrubias on set. She became involved with the Mexican artist

Miguel Covarrubias Miguel Covarrubias, also known as José Miguel Covarrubias Duclaud (22 November 1904 — 4 February 1957) was a Mexican painter, caricaturist, illustrator, ethnologist and art historian. Along with his American colleague Matthew W. Stirling, ...

in 1924, and in the following year the couple traveled to Mexico, where Rolanda began to take photographs. Albums of her images were published in Covarrubias's best-selling books ''Island of Bali'' (1938) and ''Mexico South: Isthmus of Tehuantepec'' (1946), and her work was also featured in the "Ameridinian" issue of

Wolfgang Paalen Wolfgang Robert Paalen (July 22, 1905 in Vienna, Austria – September 24, 1959 in Taxco, Mexico) was an Austrian-Mexican painter, sculptor, and art philosopher. A member of the Abstraction-Création group from 1934 to 1935, he joined the infl ...

's journal '' DYN'', published in 1943. During the late 1920s or early 1930s, Rolanda experimented with

photogram A photogram is a photographic image made without a camera by placing objects directly onto the surface of a light-sensitive material such as photographic paper and then exposing it to light. The usual result is a negative shadow image th ...

s, creating significant series of

surrealist Surrealism is a cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists depicted unnerving, illogical scenes and developed techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself. Its aim was, according to l ...

self-portraits that may have been influenced by

Man Ray Man Ray (born Emmanuel Radnitzky; August 27, 1890 – November 18, 1976) was an American visual artist who spent most of his career in Paris. He was a significant contributor to the Dada and Surrealism, Surrealist movements, although his t ...

, who photographed Rolanda in Paris in 1923. She probably began painting around 1926. The majority of Rolanda's canvases depict colorful, folkloric scenes of children and festivals, portraits of friends such as the movie actresses

Dolores del Río María de los Dolores Asúnsolo y López Negrete (3 August 1904 – 11 April 1983), known professionally as Dolores del Río (), was a Mexican actress. With a career spanning more than 50 years, she is regarded as the first major female Latin Am ...

and

María Félix María de los Ángeles Félix Güereña (; 8 April 1914 – 8 April 2002) was a Mexican actress and singer. Along with Pedro Armendáriz and Dolores del Río, she was one of the most successful figures of Latin American cinema in the 1940s an ...

, and self-portraits. Rolanda and Covarrubias married in 1930, and by 1935 they had permanently settled into his family home in

Tizapan El Alto Tizapán El Alto is a town and municipalities of Jalisco, municipality, in Jalisco in central-western Mexico. The municipality covers an area of 105.53 square miles (273.32 km²). As of 2020, the municipality had a total population of 22,758. ...

, close to Mexico City. In 1952 Rolanda exhibited her paintings in a solo show at the prominent Galeria Souza in Mexico City.—P. 7. By 1952, Covarrubias had completely separated from Rolanda in pursuit of one of his own students, Rocío Sagaón. At this point, Rolanda was producing works, such as ''Autorretrato'' (self-portrait), conveying her innermost turmoils onto canvas. She died in 1970 in Mexico City, Mexico.

Filmography

* '' The Blue Bird'' (1918) * ''

Woman A woman is an adult female human. Prior to adulthood, a female human is referred to as a girl (a female child or adolescent). The plural ''women'' is sometimes used in certain phrases such as "women's rights" to denote female humans regardl ...

'' (1918)

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Rolanda, Rosa 1895 births 1970 deaths American female dancers 20th-century American painters 20th-century American photographers American choreographers American artists of Mexican descent People from Azusa, California 20th-century American dancers 20th-century American women American emigrants to Mexico