Diego rivera biography
Diego Rivera, a Mexican muralist painter, is considered by many to be one of the greatest artists in the 20th century. Born in Guanajuato Mexico, Rivera moved to Mexico City in 1892 with his family. From an early age, Diego Rivera was passionately fond of drawing. He studied in the San Carlos Academy and in the carving workshop of artist José Guadalupe Posada.
Diego Rivera familiarized himself with post-modernism and cubism during a trip to Paris. He found these art styles most compatible with his own personal expression.
Diego Rivera's murals and canvas paintings recaptured Mexican history. He chose as his subjects not only social commentary, but the earth, the farmer, the laborer, the costumes and popular characters of Mexico. His style was simplified and colorful, precise, direct and realistic. He considered himself a revolutionary painter looking to take art to the big public, to streets and buildings.
In 1907 Rivera received a travel grant and went to Spain. While there, he visited France, Belgium, and England. In Brussels in 1909 he met Angelina Belhoff, a slender, blond young Russian painter, who became Rivera's partner for the next twelve years.
The First World War broke out in Europe, and in Mexico the revolutionary folk hero Emiliano Zapata promoted returning the land to the people. During this time, Diego Rivera became a revolutionary himself and felt the call of his country. In 1921 he returned to Mexico.
Diego Rivera began focusing on murals, and participated in the founding of the Revolutionary Union of Technical Workers, Painters and Sculptors in the autumn of 1922. Later that year he joined the Mexican Communist Party. In the years that followed, Diego was engaged by The Soviet Revolution. Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera's third wife, shared Rivera's revolutionary feelings.
In 1933 Diego Rivera started work on a mural, Man at the Crossroads, in Radio City in the Rockefeller Center in New York. However, a conflict arose over a portrait of Lenin which Rivera had included in the art, and the mural was chipped off the wall and destroyed February 9, 1934.
Diego Rivera was determined to complete the mural, but in a different place, and after doing several murals at the New Workers School, including the "Workers of the World Unite" panel, he left the U.S. He finally completed a new version of the Crossroads mural, called "Man, Controller of the Universe," in Mexico City.
