Diego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez[a] (Spanish pronunciation:[ˈdjeɣoriˈβeɾa]; December 8, 1886 – November 24, 1957) was a Mexican painter. His largefrescoes helped establish themural movement inMexican and international art.
Rivera had four wives and numerous children, including at least oneillegitimate daughter. His first child and only son died at the age of two. His third wife was fellow Mexican artistFrida Kahlo, with whom he had a volatile relationship that continued until her death. His previous two marriages, ending in divorce, were respectively to a fellow artist and a novelist, and his final marriage was to his agent.
Due to his importance in the country's art history, the government of Mexico declared Rivera's works asmonumentos históricos.[1] Rivera holds the record for highest price at auction for a work by aLatin American artist. The 1931 paintingThe Rivals, part of the record-setting collection ofPeggy Rockefeller andDavid Rockefeller, sold for US$9.76 million at a 2018Christie's auction.[2]
Rivera was born on December 8, 1886, inGuanajuato,Mexico, to María del Pilar Barrientos and Diego Rivera Acosta, a well-to-do couple.[3] His twin brother Carlos died at the age of two.[4]
His mother María del Pilar Barrientos was said to haveconverso ancestry (Spanish ancestors whowere forced to convert fromJudaism toCatholicism in the 15th and 16th centuries).[5] Rivera wrote in 1935: "My Jewishness is the dominant element in my life", despite never being raised practicing any Jewish faith, Rivera felt that his Jewish ancestry informed his art and gave him "sympathy with the downtrodden masses".[6][3] Diego was of Spanish, Amerindian, African, Italian, Jewish, Russian, andPortuguese descent.[3][7][8]
Rivera began drawing at the age of three, a year after his twin brother died. When he was caught drawing on the walls of the house, his parents installed chalkboards and canvas on the walls to encourage him.
Marriages and family
After moving toParis, Rivera metAngelina Beloff, an artist from the pre-Revolutionary Russian Empire. They married in 1911, and had a son, Diego (1916–1918), who died young. During that time, Rivera also had a relationship with painterMaria Vorobieff-Stebelska, who gave birth to a daughter namedMarika Rivera in 1918 or 1919.[9][page needed]
Portrait of Angelina Beloff, 1918
Rivera divorced Beloff and marriedGuadalupe Marín as his second wife in June 1922, after having returned to Mexico. They had two daughters,Ruth andGuadalupe.
He was still married when he met art studentFrida Kahlo in Mexico City. They began a passionate affair and, after he divorced Marín, Rivera married Kahlo on August 21, 1929. He was 42 and she was 22. Their mutual infidelities and his violent temper resulted in divorce in 1939, but they remarried December 8, 1940, inSan Francisco. A year after Kahlo's death, on July 29, 1955, Rivera married Emma Hurtado, his agent since 1946. In his later years Rivera lived in the United States and Mexico. Rivera died on November 24, 1957, at the age of 70. He was buried at thePanteón de Dolores in Mexico City.[10]
Personal beliefs
Rivera was anatheist. His muralDreams of a Sunday in the Alameda depictedIgnacio Ramírez "El Nigromante" holding a sign that read, "God does not exist". This work caused a furor, but Rivera refused to remove the inscription. The painting was not shown for nine years – until Rivera agreed to remove the inscription. He said, "To affirm 'God does not exist', I do not have to hide behind Don Ignacio Ramírez; I am an atheist and I consider religions to be a form of collective neurosis."[11]
Art education and circle
From the age of ten, Rivera studied art at theAcademy of San Carlos in Mexico City. He was sponsored to continue study in Europe byTeodoro A. Dehesa Méndez, the governor of the state ofVeracruz. After arriving in Europe in 1907, Rivera first went toMadrid to study with Eduardo Chicharro.
From there he went to Paris, a destination for young European and American artists and writers, who settled in inexpensive flats inMontparnasse. His circle frequentedLa Ruche, where his Italian friendAmedeo Modigliani painted his portrait in 1914.[12] His circle of close friends includedIlya Ehrenburg,Chaïm Soutine, Modigliani and his wifeJeanne Hébuterne,Max Jacob, gallery ownerLéopold Zborowski, andMoise Kisling. Rivera's former lover Marie Vorobieff-Stebelska (Marevna) honored the circle in her paintingHomage to Friends from Montparnasse (1962).[13]
In those years, some prominent young painters were experimenting with an art form that would later be known asCubism, a movement led byPablo Picasso andGeorges Braque. From 1913 to 1917, Rivera enthusiastically embraced this new style.[14] Around 1917, inspired byPaul Cézanne's paintings, Rivera shifted towardPost-Impressionism, using simple forms and large patches of vivid colors. His paintings began to attract attention, and he was able to display them at several exhibitions.
Rivera claimed in his autobiography that, while in Mexico in 1904, he engaged in cannibalism, pooling his money with others to "purchase cadavers from the city morgue" and particularly "relish[ing] women's brains in vinaigrette".[15][16][17] This claim has been considered factually suspect[18] or an elaborate lie.[19] He wrote in his autobiography: "I believe that when man evolves a civilization higher than the mechanized but still primitive one he has now, the eating of human flesh will be sanctioned. For then man will have thrown off all of his superstitions and irrational taboos."[20]
In the autumn of 1922, Rivera participated in the founding of the Revolutionary Union of Technical Workers, Painters and Sculptors, and later that year he joined theMexican Communist Party[24] (including itsCentral Committee). His murals, subsequently painted only infresco, are about Mexican society and reflected the country's1910 Revolution. Rivera developed his own native style based on large, simplified figures and bold colors with anAztec influence clearly present in murals at theSecretariat of Public Education inMexico City[25] begun in September 1922, intended to consist of 124 frescoes, and finished in 1928.[22]Rivera's art work, in a fashion similar to thesteles of theMaya, tells stories. The muralEn el Arsenal (In the Arsenal)[26] shows on the right-hand sideTina Modotti holding an ammunition belt and facingJulio Antonio Mella, in a light hat, andVittorio Vidali behind in a black hat. However, theEn el Arsenal detail shown does not include the right-hand side described nor any of the three individuals mentioned; instead it shows the left-hand side with Frida Kahlo handing out munitions.Leon Trotsky lived with Rivera and Kahlo for several months while exiled in Mexico.[27] Some of Rivera's most famous murals are featured at the National School of Agriculture (Chapingo Autonomous University of Agriculture) atChapingo nearTexcoco (1925–1927), in theCortés Palace inCuernavaca (1929–30), and theNational Palace in Mexico City (1929–30, 1935).[28][29][30]
Rivera painted murals in the main hall and corridor at theChapingo Autonomous University of Agriculture (UACh). He also painted a fresco mural titledTierra Fecundada[31] (Fertile Land in English) in the university's chapel between 1923 and 1927.Fertile Land depicts the revolutionary struggles of Mexico's peasant (farmers) and working classes (industry) in part through the depiction ofhammer and sickle joined by a star in the soffit of the chapel. In the mural, a "propagandist" points to another hammer and sickle. The mural features a woman with an ear ofcorn in each hand, which art critic Antonio Rodriguez describes as evocative of the Aztec goddess ofmaize in his bookCanto a la Tierra: Los murales de Diego Rivera en la Capilla de Chapingo.
The corpses of revolutionary heroesEmiliano Zapata andOtilio Montano are shown in graves, their bodies fertilizing the maize field above. A sunflower in the center of the scene "glorifies those who died for an ideal and are reborn, transfigured, into the fertile cornfield of the nation", writes Rodrigues. The mural also depicts Rivera's wifeGuadalupe Marin as a fertile nude goddess and their daughterGuadalupe Rivera y Marín as a cherub.[32] The mural was slightly damaged in an earthquake,[when?] but has since been repaired and touched up, remaining in pristine form.[citation needed]
Later years
En el Arsenal (detail), 1928Portrait of Diego Rivera, March 19, 1932; photo by Carl Van VechtenRivera (left) accompanies the director Rudolf Engel (center) and vice-presidentOtto Nagel (right) of theAkademie der Künste der DDR;BerlinOstbahnhof, March 21, 1956
In the autumn of 1927, Rivera went toMoscow, Soviet Union, having accepted a government invitation to take part in the celebration of the 10th anniversary of theOctober Revolution. The following year, while still in the Soviet Union, he met AmericanAlfred H. Barr Jr., who would soon become Rivera's friend and patron. Barr was the founding director of theMuseum of Modern Art in New York City.[33]
Although commissioned to paint a mural for theRed Army Club in Moscow, in 1928 Rivera was ordered by authorities to leave the country because, he suspected, of "resentment on the part of certain Soviet artists".[34] He returned to Mexico. In 1929, after the assassination of president-electÁlvaro Obregón the previous year, the government suppressed theMexican Communist Party. That year Rivera was expelled from the party because of his suspectedTrotskyite sympathies. In addition, observers noted that his 1928 muralIn the Arsenal includes the figures of communistsTina Modotti, CubanJulio Antonio Mella, and ItalianVittorio Vidali. After Mella was murdered in January 1929, allegedly byStalinistassassin Vidali, Rivera was accused of having had advance knowledge of a planned attack.
After divorcing his second wife, Guadalupe (Lupe) Marín, Rivera married the much youngerFrida Kahlo in August 1929. They had met when she was a student, and she was 22 years old when they married; Rivera was 52. Also in 1929, American journalistErnestine Evans's bookThe Frescoes of Diego Rivera, was published in New York City; it was the first English-language book on the artist. In December, Rivera accepted a commission from the American ambassador to Mexico to paint murals in the Palace of Cortés inCuernavaca, where the US had a consulate.[35]
In September 1930, Rivera accepted a commission by architectTimothy L. Pflueger for two works related to his design projects inSan Francisco. Rivera and Kahlo went to the city in November. Rivera painted a mural for the City Club of theSan Francisco Stock Exchange for US$2,500.[36] He also completed a fresco for the California School of Fine Art, a work that was later relocated to what is now theDiego Rivera Gallery at theSan Francisco Art Institute.[35] During that period, Rivera and Kahlo worked and lived at the studio ofRalph Stackpole, who had recommended Rivera to Pflueger. Rivera metHelen Wills, a notable American tennis player, who modeled for his City Club mural.[36]
In November 1931, theMuseum of Modern Art in New York City mounted a retrospective exhibition of Rivera's work; Kahlo attended with him.[37] Between 1932 and 1933, Rivera completed a major commission: twenty-seven fresco panels, entitledDetroit Industry, on the walls of an inner court at theDetroit Institute of Arts. Part of the cost was paid byEdsel Ford, scion of the entrepreneur.
During theMcCarthyism of the 1950s, alarge sign was placed in the courtyard defending the artistic merit of the murals while attacking his politics as "detestable".[33]
House of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo (built byJuan O'Gorman in 1930)
His muralMan at the Crossroads, originally a three-paneled work,[38] begun as a commission forJohn D. Rockefeller Jr. in 1933 for theRockefeller Center in New York City, was later destroyed. Because it included a portrait ofVladimir Lenin andMarxist pro-worker content, Rockefeller's son, the press, and some of the public protested, but the decision to destroy it was made by the management company. Anti-Communism ran high in some American circles, although many others in this period of theGreat Depression had been drawn to the movement as offering hope to labor.
When Rivera refused to remove Lenin from the painting, he was ordered to leave the US. One of Rivera's assistants managed to take a few photographs of the work so Diego was able to later recreate it. American poetArchibald MacLeish wrote six "irony-laden" poems about the mural.[39]The New Yorker magazine publishedE. B. White's light poem, "I paint what I see: A ballad of artistic integrity", also in response to the controversy with number of sponsors taking offense to it.[40] As a result of the negative publicity, officials in Chicago cancelled their commission for Rivera to paint a mural for theChicagoWorld's Fair. Rivera released a press statement, saying that he would use the remaining money from his commission at Rockefeller Center to repaint the same mural, over and over, wherever he was asked, until the money ran out. He had been paid in full although the mural was reportedly destroyed. There have been rumors that the mural was covered over rather than removed and destroyed, but this has not been confirmed. In December 1933, Rivera returned to Mexico. He repaintedMan at the Crossroads in 1934 in thePalacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City, calling this versionMan, Controller of the Universe.
Diego Rivera'sPan American Unity mural (1940) under restoration in the Roberts Family Gallery atSFMOMA, July 19, 2021;[41]
On June 5, 1940, invited again by Pflueger, Rivera returned for the last time to the United States to paint a ten-panel mural for theGolden Gate International Exposition in San Francisco. His work,Pan American Unity, was completed on November 29, 1940. Rivera painted in front of attendees at the Exposition, which had already opened. He received US$1,000 per month and US$1,000 for travel expenses.[36] The mural includes representations of two of Pflueger's architectural works, and portraits of Kahlo, woodcarverDudley C. Carter, and actressPaulette Goddard. She is shown holding Rivera's hand as they plant a white tree together.[36] Rivera's assistants on the mural includedThelma Johnson Streat, a pioneer African-American artist, dancer, and textile designer. The mural and its archives are now held byCity College of San Francisco.[42][43]
In 1946-47, Rivera paintedA Dream of a Sunday Afternoon in the Alameda Park, a fresco that featured a fully elaborated figure ofLa Calavera Catrina. This character, which was created byJosé Guadalupe Posada, originally consisted of a print depicting the head and shoulders of a skeletal woman in a big hat. Rivera endowed his Catrina figure with indigenous features and thus transformed her into a nationalist icon. Catrina is the most common image associated with theDay of the Dead.[44]
Membership in AMORC
The Tomb of Diego Rivera in The Rotunda of Illustrious Persons inside thePanteón de Dolores
In 1954, Rivera tried to be readmitted into the Mexican Communist Party. He had been expelled in part because of his support ofTrotsky, who had been exiled to Mexico and assassinated there in 1940. Rivera was required to justify his AMORC activities. At the time, the Mexican Communist Party excluded persons involved inFreemasonry, and regarded AMORC as suspiciously similar to Freemasonry.[46] Rivera told his questioners that, by joining AMORC, he wanted to infiltrate a typical "Yankee" organization on behalf of Communism. However, he also claimed that AMORC was "essentiallymaterialist, insofar as it only admits different states of energy and matter, and is based on ancient Egyptian occult knowledge fromAmenhotep IV andNefertiti".[47]
Barbara Kingsolver's novel,The Lacuna features Rivera, Kahlo, and Trotsky as major characters. An important scene of the Netflix television seriesSense8 (Episode S1E8Death Doesn't Let You Say Goodbye, broadcast in 2015) is played in theAnahuacalli Museum, called “Diego Rivera Museum” by the Lito character. He and his co-sensate, Nomi, discuss about Rivera sitting in front of what is supposed to be a sketch of Rivera'sMan at the Crossroads mural for the Rockefeller Center, destroyed in 1933 by Rockefeller.
Autobiography
My Life, My Art: An Autobiography, by Diego Rivera, with Gladys March,[48] was published posthumously in 1960. Beginning with a 1944 interview for a newspaper article, March "spent several months each year with Rivera, eventually filling 2,000 pages with his recollections and interpretations of his art and life", and compiled an autobiography, written in the first person.[49]
Seated Woman (Women with the Body of a Guitar), 1915–16. Frida Kahlo Museum
Urban Landscape, 1916. Frida Kahlo Museum
Still Life with Tulips (Naturaleza Muerta con Tulipanes), 1916, oil on canvas, 67.8 × 53.7 cm
Le bock, 1917
Knife and Fruit in Front of the Window, 1917, 91.8 × 92.4 cm. Museo Dolores Olmedo
Still Life with Utensils, 1917, 71 × 54 cm. Museo Dolores Olmedo
The Mathematician, 1919, 115.5 × 80.5 cm. Museo Dolores Olmedo
Maternidad, Angelina y el niño Diego (Motherhood, Angelina and the Child Diego), c. August 1916, oil on canvas, 134.5 × 88.5 cm, Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil. This work forms part of Rivera'sCrystal Cubist period
The Outskirts of Paris, 1918
Still Life with Ricer also known as Still Life with Garlic Press, 1918
Bather of Tehuantepec, 1923
Flowers festival, 1925
Cargadora con perro, 1927
Murals
Mural of exploitation of Mexico by Spanish conquistadores,Palacio Nacional, Mexico City (1929–1945)
Mural of the Aztec city ofTenochtitlan, Palacio Nacional, Mexico City
Mural of the Aztec market ofTlatelolco, Palacio Nacional, Mexico City
Mural showing Aztec production of gold, Palacio Nacional, Mexico City
Mural showing Totonaca celebrations and ceremonies, Palacio Nacional, Mexico City
3D mural of Quetzalcóatl in theExekatlkalli (Casa de los Vientos) inAcapulco, Guerrero, 1957
Selected exhibitions
1986:Diego Rivera: A Retrospective,[50][51] organized by the Centro Nacional de Exposiciones, Founders Society Detroit Institute of Arts, Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes, Secretaría de Educación Pública and Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores de México. It was exhibited at Detroit Institute of Arts, (February 10–April 27, 1986); Philadelphia Museum of Art, USA (June 2–August 10, 1986); Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City (September 29, 1986 – January 4, 1987); Stäatliche Kunsthalle, Berlin (July 23–September 15, 1987); Hayward Gallery, Arts Council of Great Britain, London (October 29, 1987 – January 10, 1988). The catalog was edited by Cynthia Newman HelmsISBN978-0-895-58118-1
2004:The Cubist Paintings of Diego Rivera,[52] co-organized by the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (exhibited April 4–July 25, 2004) andMuseo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City (exhibited September 22, 2004 – January 16, 2005) ASINB005HFK0NA
2009:Diego Rivera: The Cubist Portraits, 1913-1917,The Meadows Museum, Dallas, Texas, June 21–September 20, 2009[53]
2015:Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo in Detroit, Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, Michigan, March 15–July 12, 2015[57]
2015:Mexico in New Orleans: A Tale of Two Americas,LSU Museum of Art, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, May 5–September 6, 2015[58]
2016:Picasso and Rivera: Conversations Across Time, The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA)[59] with Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City; exhibited LACMA (December 4, 2016 – May 7, 2017) and Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City (June 14–September 17, 2017). Catalog edited byMichael Govan and Diana MagaloniISBN978-3-791-35555-9
2019–2022:Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, and Mexican Modernism from the Jacques and Natasha Gelman Collection exhibited at the following:
2020:Vida Americana: Mexican Muralists Remake American Art, 1925-1945,[62] Whitney Museum of American Art, February 17, 2020 – January 31, 2021
2021:In Dialogue: Diego Rivera,[63]Hallie Ford Museum of Art, Willamette University, April 9, 2021 – February 17, 2022
2022:Diego Rivera's America, co-organized by San Francisco Museum of Modern Art[64] (exhibited July 16, 2022 – January 3, 2023) andCrystal Bridges Museum of American Art,[65] Bentonville, Arkansas (exhibited March 11–July 31, 2023); catalog by James OlesISBN978-0-520-34440-2
2024:Pan American Unity: A Mural by Diego Rivera,[66] San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, June 28, 2021 – January 21, 2024
^Lipman, Jennifer (November 24, 2010)."On this day: Diego Rivera dies, November 24 1957: a portrait of an artist".The Jewish Chronicle.Archived from the original on December 21, 2010. RetrievedMarch 4, 2021.His mother was a Converso, a Jew whose ancestors had been forced to convert to Catholicism. Although he was not raised as a Jew and later declared himself an atheist
^"Mexico Virtual Jewish History Tour".Jewish Virtual Library, A Project of Aice. American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise.Archived from the original on January 23, 2003. RetrievedSeptember 20, 2012.
^Gale, Robert L. (February 2000).Millet, Francis Davis (1846-1912), artist and writer. American National Biography Online. Oxford University Press.doi:10.1093/anb/9780198606697.article.1700588.
^Rivera, Diego,My Art, My Life: An Autobiography (with Gladys March), New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1991, p. 20; originally published by The Citadel Press, New York, 1960.
^Diego Rivera,Arte y política, México: Grijalbo, 1979, p. 354.ISBN968-419-083-2.
^Rivera, Diego,My Art, My Life: An Autobiography (with Gladys March), New York: Dover Publications, 1991; originally published by The Citadel Press, New York, 1960.
Azuela, Alicia.Diego Rivera en Detroit. Mexico City:UNAM 1985
Bloch, Lucienne. "On Location with Diego Rivera".Art in America 74 (February 1986), pp. 102–23
Craven, David.Diego Rivera as Epic Modernist. New York: G.K. Hall 1997
Dickerman, Leah, and Anna Indych-López.Diego Rivera: Murals for the Museum of Modern Art. New York: The Museum of Modern Art 2011.ISBN978-0-870-70817-6
Downs, Linda.Diego Rivera: The Detroit Industry Murals. Detroit: The Detroit Institute of Arts 1999
Evans, Robert [Joseph Freeman]. "Painting and Politics: The Case of Diego Rivera."New Masses (February 1932) 22-25
González Mello, Renato. "Manuel Gamio, Diego Rivera and the Politics of Mexican Anthropology."RES 45 (Spring 2004) 161-85
Lee, Anthony.Painting on the Left: Rivera, Radical Politics, and San Francisco's Public Murals. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press 1999
Linsley, Robert. "Utopia Will Not be Televised: Rivera at Rockefeller Center."Oxford Art Journal 17, no. 2 (1994) 48-62.
Moyssén, Xavier, ed.Diego Rivera: Textos de arte. Mexico City:UNAM 1986
Oles, James.Diego Rivera's America. University of California Press, 2022. ISBN978-0-520-34440-2
Paquette, Catha (2017).At the Crossroads: Diego Rivera and his Patrons at MoMA, Rockefeller Center, and the Palace of Fine Arts. Austin: University of Texas Press.ISBN978-1477311004.
Rivera, Diego.Arte y política, Raquel Tibol, ed. Mexico City Grijalbo 1979
Rivera, Diego and Gladys March.My Life, Life: An Autobiography. New York: Dover Publications 1960
Rodrigues, Antonio. "Canto a la tierra: Los murales de Diego Rivera en la Capilla de Chapingo." (trans. Allyson Cadwell) Texcoco: Universidad Autonoma Chapingo, 1986 (1st reprint, 2000)
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