b.1886/d.1957
Recognized early in life for his talent with a paintbrush, Diego Rivera traveled
to Spain, France and Italy during his apprenticeship with the great artists of
his day, including Jose Maria Velasco and Picasso. He returned to Mexico in 1921
at the age of 35 where Jose Vasconcelos, Mexico’s Minister of Education, hired
him to paint murals on government-owned buildings with the hope of fostering the
Mexican people’s sense of pride in their history and in their great artists.
While it is undoubtedly true Diego Rivera was a gifted artist, he was also a man
of many contradictions. Expelled from the Communist Party by continuously
ignoring the party’s dictates, he spent the rest of his life trying to return
to the party’s good graces. A lifelong atheist, he experienced a
"deathbed conversion" late in life. At age 70, Rivera marched into the
Hotel del Prado and painted over the inscription "Dios no existe" on
his controversial work, "Dream of a Sunday Afternoon in the Alameda".
He then held a press conference to proclaim his faith in Catholicism. But of
Picasso, his friend and mentor, he said, "I’ve never believed in God, but
I believe in Picasso". Author Pete Hamill has alternately described him as
"warm Diego", a humanitarian whose sympathies were for the poor and
powerless, and "cold Diego", a man who could travel to Russia in the
early 1900’s and accept Stalinist travesties such as torture, murder and
deceit as necessary evils. Additionally, he was a fabled liar who claimed he’d
had Cannibalistic experiences in his earlier life.
His personal life was filled with rivalries, friendships, and lovers. He met the
great love of his life, artist Frida Kahlo when he was 42 and she was only 21.
They would remain intimate partners and collaborators for 24 years. Their
relationship weathered Frida’s many illnesses in which she would remain
bedfast for months at a time, his infidelities, and her own affairs with men as
well as women. Their public life included political revolution and international
celebrity. Leon Trotsky and his wife lived with them for a time, when Trotsky
fled Russia. Later Frida would have an affair with Trotsky, an act that was
described as a "grievous case of bad manners on the part of Trotsky",
but in fact was probably a retaliatory action on the part of Frida against
Diego’s affair with her sister. Trotsky, who received hundreds of death
threats while living in exile, was eventually murdered with an ice pick to the
brain. Shaken by a twelve-hour interrogation after his murder, Frida reunited
with Diego afterward, and they were remarried on his fifty-fourth birthday. They
would remain together until her death in 1953. Six months after her death,
Rivera was diagnosed with cancer, and died four years later. Though his wishes
were to have his ashes intermingled with Frida’s in the garden of the house
they shared, the president of Mexico ordered that he be buried in the Rotunda of
Illustrious Men in the Panteon Dolores.
The student of Diego Rivera’s life and art is presented with an excellent
opportunity to learn about Mexico’s political and cultural history. His life
is best appreciated when viewed within the context of his time. In his
paintings, inner conflict, personal relationships, and dreams for a better world
mix with beautiful renderings of Mexico and its proud history. Above all, Rivera
was a communicator of ideas. As charmed as he was by the technological wonders
of his day, there is no doubt that were he living today, he would be delighted
with inventions such as the computer and the Internet. We can only imagine the
use he would make of these modern devises. "Oh the possibilities!" one
can hear him exclaim, the opportunity for self-promotion not lost on a man like
Diego. Yet his murals stand as enduring national treasures, there being no
substitute for the experience of standing before one of his murals in a public
space, drinking in the beauty of his colors and the richness of the stories he
so eloquently recounts through his art.
-Lisa
Useful resources for further study of Diego Rivera:
Diego Rivera, Pete Hamill, Harry N. Abrams, Inc. New York, 1999
http://www.diegorivera.com
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