Diego Rivera

Famous painting~
Diego Rivera was born in December of 1886. He began painting and creating art at the age of

three after his twin brother died. When his parents caught him drawing on the walls of their

home they didnt punish him, instead they encouraged him in his growing creativity. They put

chalkboard on the walls and canvas and let him draw whenever and whatever he wanted. He

began to study at Mexico Citys Academy of San Carlos at the age of 10. Then, in 1907, he

moved to Europe and continued his education and while doing that, he met many famous artists

including Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall, and Piet Mondrian. After he returned to Mexico, he got

funding from the government to create murals about the country and its history and people that

was going to be displayed on the walls of buildings. His first mural was at the Escuela Nacional

Preparatoria in Mexico City. Diego was known for many marriages and divorces with women.

When him and Frida Kahlo were married, they shared a passion for radical politics and Marxism.

He did a painting for the Rockefellers at one point that displayed the Russian Communist leader

at the time, Vladimir Lenin, and the political atmosphere and which was defined by many

capitalists and socialists and the communist party. The Rockefellers disliked the painting because

of what Rivera had assumed the kind of person Vladimir Lenin was. They asked him to remove

the portrait but Rivera refused to do it. They eventually made him stop the work he was putting

into the mural. After all that, he lost work in major art commissions and decided to paint other

things. Diego and Frida had a rocky relationship and decided to split in 1939. But one year later,

the reunited and remarried. He then returned to painting murals again. One was for the 1940

Golden Gate International Exposition which was in San Francisco. From 1945 to 1951 he spent

his time on a piece called From the Pre-Hispanic Civilization to the Conquest. The last mural

he constructed was called Popular History of Mexico. Diego lost his wife Kahlo in 1954 and

married Emma Hurtado. By then though, his health had been declining. He traveled places for
help but doctors couldnt cure him. Diego Rivera died on November 24, 1957 in Mexico City,

Mexico. Since he died, he is known in the world for his paintings in 20th century art. One of his

famous paintings, Man at the Crossroads. When he started on this mural, in mind he thought

that the painting would show people looking forward and he would create a masterpiece. He

thought he did, but the Rockefellers and many other people thought saw the painting in a

different way. DIego was actually criticized for putting an image of VLadimir Lenin and other

socialists into his work. He painted this in 1934. This art piece shows the tensions between art

and politics in society. He sent his assistants to find a photo of Lenin because the people wanted

to see communism so he was going to give them communism. Its even said that he put in a panel

of his father that was unflattering to the Rockefeller family. It eventually got destroyed before

Diego even got done with it.

References
http://www.npr.org/2014/03/09/287745199/destroyed-by-rockefellers-mural-trespassed-on-

political-vision

http://www.diegorivera.org/man-at-the-crossroads.jsp

http://www.diegorivera.org/

https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/art-1010/art-between-wars/latin-american-

modernism1/a/diego-rivera-man-at-the-crossroads