Portrait of Antonieta Rivas Mercado

Actress, writer, feminist and great promoter of the arts, Antonieta Rivas Mercado was a formidable force in the cultural life of Mexico in the early twentieth-century. Her endless championing of cultural and artistic projects as well her support for numerous artists, writers, musicians, poets and others, made her an iconic figure her country’s cultural panorama. Born to a middle-class family, her father was the noted architect Antonio Rivas Mercado who designed the Independence Column in Mexico City. Antonieta Rivas Mercado contributed to the avant-garde magazine Los Contemporáneos and the Spanish newspaper El Sol; was instrumental in founding the Teatro Ulises and the Orquesta Sinfónica of Mexico, and generally was the most important cultural ambassador for her country. Tragically, due to a failed love affair with José Vasconcelos, in 1931 she shot herself with his pistol in Notre Dame, Paris. In 1982, the movie Antonieta, starring Isabelle Adjani, by Spanish filmmaker Carlos Saura was released.