Diego Rivera

Diego Rivera (1886-1957), Mexican painter who produced impressive murals with a social message and ranks as one of his country’s greatest artists. His wife, Frida Kahlo, is also considered a leading 20th-century painter.

Rivera was born on December 8, 1886, in Guanajuato, Mexico, and he attended the San Carlos Academy of Fine Arts, Mexico City, where he studied painting. From 1907 to 1921 he spent most of his time in Europe, studying and working in Spain, France, and Italy. In Paris he became familiar with the innovative cubist forms of Pablo Picasso and Juan Gris, and the work of earlier painters such as Paul Cézanne. In Italy he studied wall paintings of the Italian Renaissance (see Renaissance Art and Architecture).

In 1921 Rivera returned to Mexico and took a prominent part in a revival of Mexican mural painting initiated by artists and sponsored by the Mexican government. Believing that art should serve the working people and be readily available to them, he concentrated on painting large frescoes on the walls of public buildings. He derived his style from a study of folk art and native Mexican art. His subjects were Mexico’s history and the everyday life of its people; with these murals he hoped to educate Mexicans about their past. His works during the 1930s included frescoes in the Ministry of Education at Mexico City and in the National Agricultural School at Chapingo.

Rivera was an active member of the Mexican Communist Party (see Communism), and in 1927 and 1928 he visited the Soviet Union and taught in Moscow. After his return to Mexico he painted murals on the history of Mexico in the National Palace in Mexico City (1929) and in the Palace of Cortes in Cuernavaca (1930). In 1929 Rivera married Frida Kahlo. He was influenced by her work, and included her portrait in many of his murals. Rivera also executed several works in the United States, including the mural Detroit Industry (1932-1933) for the Detroit Institute of Arts. The fresco Man at the Crossroads (1933), commissioned for the new RCA building in Rockefeller Center in New York City, was ordered destroyed shortly after its completion because it included a portrait of Soviet leader Vladimir Ilich Lenin.

For several years after 1934 Rivera concentrated on easel paintings, primarily portraits, landscapes, and images of Mexican life. But from 1940 on he returned to mural painting, notably in work for the World’s Fair in San Francisco and for the National Palace in Mexico City. Greatly influenced by indigenous Mexican art, Rivera’s murals are simple and bold in design. They are effective as social commentary, although Rivera’s political views aroused much controversy in both the United States and Mexico. Rivera died in Mexico City on November 25, 1957.