At the center of an artistic milieu as vital and exciting as the Left Bank of Paris or Greenwich Village, Rosa and Miguel Covarrubias knew almost everyone in the limelight of the 1930s and 1940s-Langston Hughes, Carl Van Vechten, John Huston, Diego Rivera, and Frida Kahlo, to name just a few. As fascinating themselves as any of their friends, the couple together fostered a renaissance of interest in the history and traditional arts of Mexico's indigenous peoples, while amassing an extraordinary collection of art that ranged from pre-Hispanic Olmec and Aztec sculptures to the work of Diego Rivera. Written by a long-time friend of Rosa, this book presents a sparkling account of the life and times of Rosa and Miguel. Adriana Williams begins with Miguel's birth in 1904 and follows the brilliant early flowering of his artistic career as a renowned caricaturist for Vanity Fair and the New Yorker magazines, his meeting and marriage with Rosa at the height of her New York dancing career, and their many years of professional collaboration on projects ranging from dance to anthropology to painting and art collecting to the development of museums to preserve Mexico's pre-Columbian heritage. Interviewing as many of their friends as possible, Williams fills her narrative with reminiscences that illuminate Miguel's multifaceted talents, Rosa's crucial collaboration in many of his projects, and their often tempestuous relationship.

Miguel Covarrubias enjoyed transcultural encounters and exchanges in the cosmopolitan centers of Mexico City, New York, and Europe, where he met and exchanged ideas in a global network of modernists such as Georgia O'Keeffe. Famous for his caricature studies, he was also an accomplished painter, set designer, and book illustrator. Less well known are his consummate skills as an art historian, curator, cartographer, ethnographer, and documentary filmmaker, as well as his direction of programs in museum studies, dance, and the excavation of cultural sites in Mexico.

Miguel Covarrubias: Drawing a Cosmopolitan Line, the catalogue of an exhibition at the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum, establishes the importance of Covarrubias's broad-ranging and significant contributions to modern art. The book includes an extensive selection of this prolific artist's compositions in graphite, watercolor, and oil paint, as well as illustrations from his scholarly publications. Four accompanying essays consider Covarrubias's artistic practice and contributions to the richness of modern art. They discuss his lifelong habit of moving between modern cities and remote sites of ancient cultures, which engendered a strong cosmopolitanism in his work; his role in promoting the art of the Americas, from ancient Olmec works to contemporary pieces, through curatorial efforts in New York and Mexico City; the large-scale mural maps Covarrubias made for the 1939 San Francisco World's Fair that bring his anthropological, ethnographic, and geographic interests together with cartography and blur lines between landscape and culture; and his substantial scholarship on the indigenous arts of North America.