Diego Rivera

Introduction

Diego Rivera (December 8, 1886 - November 24, 1957) was born in Guanajuato, Gto. He was a world-famous Mexican painter, an active Communist, and husband of Frida Kahlo, 1929-1939 and 1940-1954 (her death). Rivera's large wall works in fresco helped establish the Mexican Mural Renaissance. Between 1922 and 1953, Rivera painted murals in Mexico City, Chapingo, Cuernavaca, San Francisco, Detroit, and New York City. In 1931, a retrospective exhibition of his works was displayed at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

Early life

Diego Rivera was born in Guanajuato City, Guanajuato, to a well-to-do family. Guanajuato, although it is the state capital, is only the fifth-largest city in the state, behind León, Irapuato, Celaya, and Salamanca. The 2005 census population was 70,798 people in the city. Guanajuato is also the name of the surrounding municipality of which the city is the municipal seat. The municipality had a population of 153,364 and an areal extent of 996.74 km² (384.84 sq mi). The city of Guanajuato lies near the western edge of the municipality, which includes numerous smaller outlying communities, the largest of which are Marfil, Yerbabuena, and Santa Teresa. Rivera was descended, on his mother's side, from Jews who converted to Roman Catholicism, and, on his father's side, from Spanish nobility. From the age of ten, Rivera studied art at the Academy of San Carlos in Mexico City. He was sponsored to continue study in Europe by Teodoro A. Dehesa Mendez, the governor of the State of Veracruz.

After arrival in Europe in 1907, Rivera initially went to study with Eduardo Chicharro in Madrid, Spain, and from there went to Paris, France, to live and work with the great gathering of artists in Montparnasse, especially at La Ruche, where his friend Amedeo Modigliani painted his portrait in 1914. His circle of close friends, which included Ilya Ehrenburg, Chaim Soutine, Amadeo Modigliani and Modigliani's wife Jeanne Hebuterne, Max Jacob, gallery owner Leopold Zborowski, and Moise Kisling, was captured for posterity by Marie Vorobieff-Stebelska (Marevna) in her painting "Homage to Friends from Montparnasse" (1962).

In those years, Paris was witnessing the beginning of cubism in paintings by such eminent painters as Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. From 1913 to 1917, Rivera enthusiastically embraced this new school of art. Around 1917, inspired by Paul Cezanne's paintings, Rivera shifted toward Post-Impressionism with simple forms and large patches of vivid colors. His paintings began to attract attention, and he was able to display them at several exhibitions.

Career in Mexico

In 1920, urged by Alberto J. Pani, the Mexican ambassador to France, Rivera left France and traveled through Italy studying its art, including Renaissance frescoes. After Jose Vasconcelos became Minister of Education, Rivera returned to Mexico in 1921 to become involved in the government sponsored Mexican mural program planned by Vasconcelos. (See also Mexican Muralism.) The program included such Mexican artists as Jose Clemente Orozco, David Alfaro Siqueiros, and Rufino Tamayo, and the French artist Jean Charlot. In January 1922, he painted - experimentally in encaustic - ...