DIEGO RIVERA: BIOGRAPHY, STYLE AND WORKS - ART - 2026

Diego Rivera (1886 - 1957) was a famous 20th century Mexican plastic artist. Together with David Alfaro Siqueiros and José Clemente Orozco, he was one of those responsible for giving life to the Renaissance of Mexican Muralism.

From an early age, his artistic inclinations were recognizable. He was considered a prodigy of drawing. When he was barely ten years old, he was enrolled to study art at the Academia de San Carlos, in Mexico City.

Carl van vechten

After studying in Europe, Diego Rivera returned to Mexico where he began to work with his own style: a fusion of Italian Renaissance frescoes, post-impressionism, social realism, futurism and pre-Columbian art.

Rivera captured in his works images typical of Mexican culture. Also, being a supporter of the socialist ideology, he expressed in them the class struggle and the worker and rural exaltation.

He was one of the founders of the Union of Technical Workers, Painters and Sculptors in 1922. The same year he joined the Communist Party of Mexico, of which he became part of the Central Committee.

Diego Rivera was married five times. After his second divorce, he married Frida Kahlo in 1929, a visual artist who had been his model.

Carl van vechten

This relationship had a hiatus in 1939, when both parties decided to dissolve the marriage, but they remarried in 1940 and the relationship lasted until her death in 1954.

Biography

Early years

Diego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera and Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez, was born in Guanajuato, Mexico, on December 8, 1886.

His parents were Diego Rivera Acosta and María Del Pilar Barrientos. He was a teacher, sanitary inspector and editor of a newspaper. She was a teacher and a midwife.

User: Dominik, from Wikimedia Commons

The family moved to Mexico City in 1893, when Diego was six years old. At that time, the boy had already shown aptitude for drawing and painting.

At the age of ten he entered the Academia de San Carlos, a famous center for the study of fine arts. He attended the night shift, while in the morning he went to the Mexican Hispanic Catholic High School.

At the San Carlos Academy, he absorbed knowledge from teachers such as Santiago Rebull, Salomé Piña, Félix Parra, José María Velasco, and Antonio Fabrés. Likewise, he was influenced by José Guadalupe Posada, who had a printing workshop near the high school.

In 1905 the Secretary of Public Instruction and Fine Arts of Mexico, Justo Sierra, known as “El Maestro de América”, granted Rivera a pension. Two years later, the governor of Veracruz granted him another pension of 300 pesos a month that would allow him to travel to Europe.

First years in Europe

He arrived in Spain in January 1907. There he entered the Madrid Academy and worked in the studio of the portrait artist Eduardo Chicharro. Then he absorbed as much as he could from the paintings of El Greco, Goya and Velázquez. During this period his work was marked by Realism and Impressionism.

By 1909 he moved to Paris, France, where he frequented the artists' circles of Montparnasse and became friends with Amadeo Modigliani and his wife Jeanne Hebuterne. He also met the Russian painter Angelina Beloff with whom he began an affair.

In 1910 he returned briefly to Mexico, where he held an exhibition sponsored by President Porfirio Díaz, probably to ensure the continuity of his scholarship amid the Mexican political turmoil.

Return to the old continent

Diego Rivera found himself again in the city of light in 1911. At that time, his circle of friends in the world of painting expanded and he married Beloff, who in 1916 gave birth to Miguel Ángel Diego. However, fourteen months later the boy died.

In 1919, Marika Rivera y Vorobieva was born from her affair with Marievna Vorobieva-Stebelska. She never recognized Marika as her daughter; However, he helped them financially and rented a house for them where he visited them until his return to Mexico two years later.

The following year, the Mexican ambassador to France, Alberto J. Pani, obtained financial help for him to go to Italy. He definitively ended his relationship with Beloff, which was already weakened by his love affair with Marievna since 1916 and the birth of Marika in 1919.

Return to Mexico

José Vasconcelos was appointed Secretary of Public Instruction in the newly formed government of Álvaro Obregón in 1921.

One of his plans was to use state patronage for propaganda purposes and for this he convinced David Alfaro Siqueiros, José Clemente Orozco and Diego Rivera to return to the country. These three were the founders of the Renaissance of Mexican Muralism.

His first commission, in 1921, was the mural that he titled Creation in the Simón Bolívar Amphitheater of the National University of Mexico. The fundamental theme of the work is the creation of the Mexican race from the tree of life. The mural was completed in 1923.

One of the models who posed for the mural was Guadalupe Marín, whom Rivera married in 1922.

Years of revolution

The same year, together with Siqueiros, he founded the Union of Technical Workers, Painters and Sculptors, he also joined the Mexican Communist Party, and later became part of its Central Committee.

Then he began one of his most monumental works: 124 panels in the building of the Ministry of Public Education, in Mexico City. In them he reflected Mexican society, its culture and customs, and its revolutionary past. The work was completed in 1928.

Kgv88, from Wikimedia Commons

In 1924, Guadalupe Marín gave birth to Lupe Rivera Marín. Two years later, the Mexican's third daughter, Ruth Rivera Marín, was born.

The artist was invited to the Soviet Union to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the October Revolution, in 1927. The following year, “La Gata” Marín and Rivera divorced.

The painter married in 1929 with his model, Frida Kahlo. That same year, Diego Rivera was a presidential candidate for the Communist Party of Mexico before being expelled.

Muralism in the north

Rivera's work was admired in the United States, much in spite of the socialist ideology expressed in his paintings. In the mid-1930s he was invited by architect Timothy L. Pflueger to San Francisco with the promise that he would be commissioned for various jobs.

After arriving with Kahlo, Rivera painted frescoes for the San Francisco Stock Exchange Club and the California School of Fine Arts. In 1931, the Museum of Modern Art in New York held a retrospective exhibition of Rivera's work.

Especially for this exhibition, Rivera devised the apparently contradictory concept of the "transportable mural", thanks to which large works could be disassembled into smaller panels that facilitated their transfer.

Carl van vechten

In 1932, at the request of Edsel Ford, Rivera began a series of twenty-seven panels called The Detroit Industry to grace the Detroit Institute of the Arts. The work, completed in 1933, shows workers of different races working with industrial machinery in the process of building automobiles.

After Detroit, he received a request from Nelson Rockefeller to do a fresco in the lobby of the RCA building in New York. At Rockefeller's request, Rivera presented him with a sketch of The Man at the Crossroads before work began.

Due to ideological conflicts, this work was canceled, as well as other commissions that had been requested from the Mexican. Rivera returned to Mexico in late 1933.

Last trip to the United States

Diego Rivera dedicated the last years of the 1930s to painting, above all, landscape canvases and portraits. In addition, together with André Bretón he published Manifesto for Revolutionary Art in 1938.

Rivera was the center of an event of great importance on the political scene: in 1937 he convinced the Cárdenas government to offer asylum to León Trotsky, persecuted by the Stalinist government of the Soviet Union, offering his residence as accommodation for the politician and his wife.

House of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, San Ángel, Mexico City {{GFDL}}

His relationship with Frida Kahlo, in which there were infidelities on both sides, had a stormy nature. In 1939 they decided to divorce. However, in 1940 they remarried.

In 1940 he returned to the United States, again at the request of Pflueger, to paint a fresco at the Golden Gate International Exposition. It was the last visit he made to that country.

Last years

He was a founding member of the National College of Mexico in 1943. Three years later, he was a member of the Mural Painting Commission of the National Institute of Fine Arts.

In 1947 he completed one of his emblematic works, Dream of a Sunday afternoon in the Alameda Central, originally located in the Hotel del Prado, in Mexico City. Due to the 1985 earthquake, this building was declared uninhabitable, but the mural, with some damage, was rescued and moved to its own museum.

He won the National Prize of Arts and Sciences of Mexico in 1950 and illustrated, together with Siqueiros, the Mexican edition of Pablo Neruda's Canto General.

In 1953 he completed one of his last and most important works, the unnamed mural on the facade of the Teatro de los Insurgentes in Mexico City. His intention was to represent four centuries of Mexican history, putting the social reality of the 1950s at the center of the image.

Frida Kahlo, his wife of 25 years, died in their Casa Azul after a long suffering in 1954. That same year he was readmitted to the Mexican Communist Party.

After being diagnosed with cancer in 1955, he married Emma Hurtado, his friend and agent for the last 10 years.

Death

Diego Rivera died in his House-Study on November 24, 1957 when he was 70 years old due to cancer. Despite having undergone surgery on several occasions, Rivera's health had deteriorated rapidly.

Although his last wish was for his ashes to remain with Frida's in the Blue House, the government decided to place them in the Rotunda of Illustrious Men.

Artistic style

The style developed by Diego Rivera, took elements such as cubist space and industrial and pre-Columbian forms linked with the language of Realism so that its message was accessible to all.

The solid colors of Post-impressionism and the agglomerated but defined forms, whether they are people, flowers or machinery, would be the visual mark in his work.

Paris and the changes

After having settled in the French capital, Diego Rivera participated, in 1910, in an exhibition sponsored by the Society of Independent Artists of Paris.

His paintings from this time were heavily influenced by the Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works of Cézanne, Van Gogh, and Gaugin. By 1913 Rivera adopted the Cubist style thanks to the influence of Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque and, particularly, Juan Gris.

That brief cubist period saw the birth of works such as Woman at the Well and Maternity, Angelina and the Child Diego. But it was abruptly interrupted in 1917. Criticisms of his art were mixed, since the purists of Cubism did not fully accept Rivera.

In addition, the development of the Russian Revolution and the events that occurred in Mexico due to the Mexican Revolution, aroused in Rivera the interest that his art was a way of expression of the ideological.

Inspired by Cézanne, Diego Rivera's work took on post-impressionist nuances. Sharp finishes and the use of large expanses of solid, vivid colors earned it critical acclaim.

Muralism

He stayed in Italy for a year, during which he studied the frescoes of Quattrocento and was especially amazed by the works of Giotto. The idea began to form that wall art was the ideal medium to represent the ideas of the Mexican and socialist revolution in their homeland.

This is how, under the auspices of the revolutionary government of Mexico, he began to make murals loaded with Marxist ideology and the idealization of the Mexican working-class and agrarian people.

This view of art was controversial during his time in the United States. His fellow ideologists criticized him that he had sold himself to the bourgeoisie, while American anti-communists had even made threats against Rivera's own work and life.

The greatest example of this was Nelson Rockefeller's commission in which Rivera tried to show his revolutionary ideas.

Jaontiveros, from Wikimedia Commons

The painter included a picture of Lenin, for which Rockefeller demanded that he remove it from the painting. Rivera refused, the work was left unfinished and later it was destroyed.

But in January 1934, the artist set about recreating the mural with some modifications, which he then titled The Man Controller of the Universe, at the Palacio de Bellas Artes, in Mexico City.

Recognitions

- In 1950 he won the National Prize for Sciences and Arts, in Mexico.

- In 1951 an exhibition was held at the Palacio de Bellas Artes, in Mexico City, in honor of Diego Rivera's 50 years of works.

- The house that he lived in with Frida Kahlo was converted into the Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo House Study Museum, and the adjacent street is called Calle Diego Rivera.

- In 1986 the Diego Rivera Mural Museum was created, where the work Dream of a Sunday Afternoon in Alameda Central would be permanently located, which had been damaged in the 1985 earthquake in Mexico City.

- Since 2010, the Bank of Mexico paid tribute to Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, presenting them on the 500 peso bill.

In addition, the life of Diego Rivera, and especially the period of his relationship with Frida Kahlo, has been represented on various occasions in the cinema and in literature.

Complete works

Easel Paintings

Oil

- The Era (oil on canvas, 1904).

- The Pinole Seller (oil on canvas, 1936).

- Portrait of Lupe Marín (oil on canvas, 1938).

- Woman in White (oil on canvas, 1939).

- Dancer resting (oil on canvas, 1939).

- Portrait of Modesta and Inesita (oil on canvas, 1939).

- The hands of Dr. Moore (oil on canvas, 1940).

- Portrait of Paulette Goddard (oil on canvas, 1941).

- Self-portrait dedicated to Irene Rich (oil on canvas, 1941).

- Portrait of Carlos Pellicer (oil on wood, 1942).

- Portrait of Natasha Zakólkowa Gelman (oil on canvas, 1943).

- Nude with calla lilies (oil on wood, 1944).

- Day of the Dead (oil on wood, 1944).

- The Hatter. Portrait of Henri de Chatillon (oil on masonite, 1944).

- Portrait of Adalgisa Nery (oil on canvas, 1945).

- Portrait of Cuca Bustamante (oil on canvas, 1946).

- Portrait of Linda Christian (oil on canvas, 1947).

- The temptations of Saint Anthony (oil on canvas, 1947).

- Portrait of an actress (oil on canvas, 1948).

- Portrait of Evangelina Rivas from De Lachica, the lady of Oaxaca (oil on canvas, 1949).

- Portrait of Mrs. Doña Evangelina Rivas de De Lachica (oil on canvas, 1949).

- Portrait of Ruth Rivera (oil on canvas, 1949).

- Portrait of the girl Elenita Carrillo Flores (oil on canvas, 1952).

- Portrait of Mrs. Doña Elena Flores de Carrillo (oil on canvas, 1953).

- Study of the painter (oil on canvas, 1954).

- Portrait of Silvia Pinal (oil on canvas, 1956).

- Procession of May 1 in Moscow (oil on canvas, 1956).

- The hammock (oil on canvas, 1956).

Pencil

- Goat's Head (pencil on paper, 1905).

Watercolor

- Landscape of Toledo (watercolor on paper, 1913).

- Cargadora con Perro (watercolor, 1927).

Others

- Still life (tempera on canvas, 1913).

- The Adoration of the Virgin and Child (encaustic painting on canvas, 1913).

- The Flower Carrier (oil and tempera on canvas, 1935).

- Sunset in Acapulco (oil and tempera on canvas, 1956).

Murals

- The Creation (fresco with gold leaf, 1923).

- Series of murals in the Ministry of Public Education (fresco, 1923-1928).

- Series of murals in the chaping of the University of Chapingo (fresco, 1923-1927).

- History of Cuernavaca and Morelos mural series (fresco, 1927-1930).

- Allegory of California (fresco, 1931).

- Frozen Funds (fresco on steel and concrete, 1931).

- The making of a fresco, showing the construction of a city (fresco, 1931).

- The Detroit Industry (fresco, 1932-1933).

- The man at the crossroads / The controlling man of the universe (fresco, 1933-1934).

National Palace of Mexico, by Thelmadatter.

- History of Mexico mural series (fresco, 1929-1935).

- Carnival of Mexican life (transportable fresco, 1936).

- Pan-American Unit (fresco, 1940).

- Dream of a Sunday afternoon in the Alameda Central (transportable fresco, 1948).

Adam Jones from Kelowna, BC, Canada, via Wikimedia Commons

- Prehispanic and Colonial Mexico Series (1945-1952).

- Water, origin of life (polystyrene and rubber on concrete, 1951).

- The people demand health (History of medicine in Mexico) (fresco, 1953).

References

1. En.wikipedia.org. (2018). Diego Rivera. Available at: en.wikipedia.org.
2. Biography. (2018). Diego Rivera. Available at: biography.com.
3. Diego Rivera. (2010). Diego Rivera - Paintings, Murals, Biography of Diego Rivera. Available at: diegorivera.org.
4. Diego-rivera-foundation.org. (2012). Diego Rivera - The Complete Works - Biography - diego-rivera-foundation.org. Available at: diego-rivera-foundation.org.
5. Diego Rivera. (2010). Diego Rivera Biography. Available at: diegorivera.org.
6. Notablebiographies.com. (nd). Diego Rivera Biography - life, family, parents, death, history, school, mother, young, old, information, born. Available at: notablebiographies.com/Pu-Ro/Rivera-Diego.
7. Felipe, A. (2017). History and biography of Diego Rivera. History and biography. Available at: historia-biografia.com.