By Francisco Peyret
Diego Rivera was born on December 8, 1886, in the city of Guanajuato. Those who knew him and studied his life describe him as a powerful man, with a strong character and firm convictions. He became one of the most outstanding and influential Latin American artists of his generation. However, his controversial personality led to some powerful moments and marked his career in a forceful way.
One such moment came when he was a young man in Paris, where he stayed from 1909 to 1921. He ventured into the cubist style at a time when many artists were still discussing the definition of what this movement was really about. On one side of the controversy were Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, and on the other side was Rivera, whose different style made Paris angry. This was especially so when the Mexican painter appeared with his «cubist portraits,» which many critics found too realistic, while at no time was the artist trying to reorganize or reform that reality. The debate between Rivera and his detractors reached an explosive moment at an elegant dinner. After the meal, the influential Parisian art critic Pierre Riverdy and Rivera became increasingly intoxicated, and their arguments ended in blows. Following that, the works of the Mexican artist were withdrawn from Parisian galleries, and it became a kind of exile for Rivera from cubism. For many years, Rivera claimed that Picasso had stolen elements of his work. This conflict became known as the «Rivera affair,» and he returned to figurative art.
During his last years in Paris, Rivera met David Alfaro Siqueiros, who had left Mexico after the Mexican Revolution. It was in Paris that the two artists began creating images of the Mexican past and presenting works that were eventually captured on murals in public buildings during the 1930s.
It was not until 2014, when the Orangerie Museum in Paris presented an exhibition that brought together 100 works by Rivera and Frida Kahlo. It stayed for three months and was a very successful exhibit, with thousands of visitors standing in line to see Rivera’s works.
In the 1930s, Rivera received invitations to paint in the United States, both in San Francisco and at the Detroit Institute of Arts, and he painted “The Industrial Murals,” for Henry Ford. At that time, he was considered the continental artist of the 1930s, according to Sandra Zetina Ocaña, an academic at the Institute for Aesthetic Research (IIE).
In 1931, when Rivera appeared at the MOMA in New York, he broke attendance records because of great interest in getting to know his works. News about his success reached the ears of Abby Rockefeller, wife of John D. Rockefeller, businessman and patron of arts. Since Picasso and Matisse had turned down Rockefeller’s offer to paint a mural in the main building in Rockefeller Plaza, the opportunity arose for Rivera to do so. His mural, “Man at the Crossroads,” did not cause any controversy at first because he stuck to the original sketches that had been approved by the Rockefellers themselves. However, as he neared completion of his work, the figures of Marx, Trotsky, and Lenin appeared. These were objectionable to the Rockefellers and led to the dismissal of Rivera from the works.
We will never know what Diego Rivera’s career would have been like had he remained in Paris with the most important generation of painters of the 20th century, nor can we surmise what his story would be like if he had stayed in New York, which in those years was becoming one of the most influential cities on the planet. Diego Rivera and David Alfaro Siqueiros were men faithful to their convictions and ideologies, which brought them many problems and confrontations. In the end, we only have to thank him for his enormous legacy that we still enjoy today. On December 8, we celebrate his birthday. Happy birthday, dear Diego!
«I firmly believe that women are not made of the same material as men. Women are humanity. Men are a subspecies of animals, almost stupid, meaningless, completely inadequate for love, created by women to put themselves at the service of the intelligent and sensitive species that they represent.»—Diego Rivera
