Diego Rivera

Diego Rivera was a famous Mexican painter, born on December 8, 1886, and passed away on November 24, 1957. He is best known for his large frescoes, which helped start the mural movement in Mexican and international art.

From 1922 to 1953, Rivera created many murals in places like Mexico City, Chapingo, Cuernavaca, San Francisco, Detroit, and New York City. In 1931, the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan held a special show of his work, just before he began painting a big series called the Detroit Industry Murals.

Rivera married four times and had many children. His third wife was the well-known artist Frida Kahlo, and they had a very up-and-down relationship. Because of his big role in Mexico's art history, the government named his works as monumentos históricos. One of his paintings, The Rivals, sold for $9.76 million in 2018, which was the highest price ever for a work by a Latin American artist at that time.

Personal life

Rivera was born on December 8, 1886, in Guanajuato, Mexico, to a well-to-do family. His mother had ancestors who were Spanish and had been forced to convert from Judaism to Catholicism. Even though he wasn’t raised with any particular religion, Rivera felt this part of his background shaped his art and gave him a deep care for people who were treated unfairly.

Rivera started drawing when he was just three years old. After moving to Paris, he married an artist named Angelina Beloff, but their son sadly passed away when he was very young. Later, he married Guadalupe Marín and had two daughters. He then met and married the famous artist Frida Kahlo. They had a strong but difficult relationship and divorced, but later remarried. Rivera was known for his strong opinions and did not believe in any religion. He studied art in Mexico and later in Europe, where he made many friends among artists and writers.

Career in Mexico

In 1920, Diego Rivera left France to study art in Italy, including looking at old wall paintings. He returned to Mexico in 1921 to help start a big government project to paint large wall pictures, or murals, with other famous artists.

Starting in 1922, Rivera began painting big murals about Mexican life and history. His paintings often showed stories from Mexico’s past, using simple shapes and strong colors. Some of his most famous works are in Mexico City, Chapingo, and Cuernavaca. His art tells stories, much like old stone carvings from ancient Mexico.

Later years

In the autumn of 1927, Rivera traveled to Moscow, Soviet Union, to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the October Revolution. The next year, he met American Alfred H. Barr Jr., who became a close friend and supporter. Barr was the founding director of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

Rivera was asked to paint a mural for the Red Army Club in Moscow, but in 1928, he was asked to leave the country. He returned to Mexico. In 1929, after a political change, Rivera was no longer part of the Mexican Communist Party. That same year, he married the artist Frida Kahlo. They had met when she was a student, and she was 22 years old when they married, while Rivera was 52. Also in 1929, a book about Rivera’s art, written by American journalist Ernestine Evans, was published in New York City. It was the first book about the artist written in English. Later that year, Rivera began painting murals in the Palace of Cortés in Cuernavaca.

In 1930, Rivera was asked to create two works in San Francisco by architect Timothy L. Pflueger. Rivera and Kahlo moved to the city in November. Rivera painted a mural for the City Club of the San Francisco Stock Exchange and a fresco for the California School of Fine Art, which is now at the Diego Rivera Gallery at the San Francisco Art Institute. During this time, Rivera met Helen Wills, a famous American tennis player, who posed for his City Club mural.

In November 1931, the Museum of Modern Art in New York City held an exhibition of Rivera’s work, and Kahlo joined him for the event. Between 1932 and 1933, Rivera finished a big project: twenty-seven fresco panels called Detroit Industry, on the walls of the Detroit Institute of Arts. Part of the cost was paid by Edsel Ford, a member of the Ford family.

One of Rivera’s famous projects began in 1933. He was asked to paint a mural called Man at the Crossroads for John D. Rockefeller Jr. in Rockefeller Center in New York City. The mural included a picture of Vladimir Lenin and showed workers, which some people did not like. Because of this, the mural was taken down. Rivera was asked to leave the United States. He later recreated the mural in Mexico City in 1934, calling it Man, Controller of the Universe.

In June 1940, Rivera returned to the United States for the last time to paint a ten-panel mural for the Golden Gate International Exposition in San Francisco. His work, Pan American Unity, was finished on November 29, 1940. The mural shows many people and includes pictures of Kahlo, woodcarver Dudley C. Carter, and actress Paulette Goddard. Rivera’s helper on this mural was Thelma Johnson Streat, an African-American artist, dancer, and textile designer. The mural and its records are now at City College of San Francisco.

In 1946-47, Rivera painted A Dream of a Sunday Afternoon in the Alameda Park, a fresco that shows a well-known figure called La Calavera Catrina. This character was created by José Guadalupe Posada and became a symbol of the Day of the Dead.

Autobiography

DMy Life, My Art: An Autobiography, by Diego Rivera, with Gladys March, was published after his death in 1960. It started from a newspaper interview in 1944. March spent many months with Rivera, collecting his stories about his art and life, and wrote them as if Rivera himself was telling them.

Selected exhibitions

Diego Rivera’s artwork has been shown in many exhibitions around the world. Some notable ones include:

• 1986: “Diego Rivera: A Retrospective” was displayed in Detroit, Philadelphia, Mexico City, Berlin, and London.
• 2004: “The Cubist Paintings of Diego Rivera” was shown at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and the Museo de Arte Moderno in Mexico City.
• 2009: “Diego Rivera: The Cubist Portraits, 1913–1917” was exhibited at The Meadows Museum in Dallas, Texas.
• 2011: “Diego Rivera: Murals for The Museum of Modern Art” was displayed at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
• 2013: “Frida & Diego: Passion, Politics, and Painting” was shown at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Georgia, and “Diego Rivera in San Antonio” was exhibited at the San Antonio Museum of Art.
• 2015: Exhibitions about Rivera and Frida Kahlo were held in Detroit and New Orleans.
• 2016: “Picasso and Rivera: Conversations Across Time” was displayed at LACMA in Los Angeles and later in Mexico City.
• 2019–2022: “Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, and Mexican Modernism” traveled to several museums including Philbrook Museum of Art, Portland Art Museum, Norton Museum of Art, Denver Art Museum, Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, North Carolina Museum of Art, and Frist Art Museum.
• 2020: “Vida Americana: Mexican Muralists Remake American Art, 1925–1945” was shown at the Whitney Museum of American Art.
• 2021: “In Dialogue: Diego Rivera” was exhibited at the Hallie Ford Museum of Art.
• 2022: “Diego Rivera's America” was displayed at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.
• 2024: “Pan American Unity: A Mural by Diego Rivera” was shown at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
• 2025: “Rivera's Paris” will be exhibited at the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts.
• 2026: “Frida and Diego: The Last Dream” will be displayed at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.