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Birth of Diego Rivera
Diego Rivera was born on December 8, 1886 in Guanajuato, Mexico. He had a twin brother named Carlos who died two years later. The names of his parents were María del Pilar Barrientos and Diego Rivera Acosta. -
San Carlos Academy of Fine Arts (1896-1898)
As a young child, he liked to draw especially on the walls. His parents helped enroll him in San Carlos Academy of Fine Arts in order to encourage his artistic ability. He studied traditional painting and sculpting techniques under the authority of a largely conservative faculty. -
Finishing His Studies
Rivera completed his studies in 1905. He and Gerardo Murillo (the artist who was the driving force of the mural movement) joined with a group of other upcoming artists in an exhibition formed by the editors of Savia Moderna Magazine. -
Travel to Europe
Rivera received a government sponsorship to study in Europe to further his art studies. He began his trip starting with Madrid to study at the San Fernando Royal Academy. He created paintings such as "Night Scene in Avila", a painting with elements of Realism and Impressionism, in Madrid. -
Time In Paris
Rivera displayed six paintings in the 1910 exhibit, which was sponsored by The Society of Independent Artists in Paris. Some of his famous paintings included "Head of a Breton Woman", "Breton Girl", and "House over the Bridge". -
First Marriage
He married his first wife Angelina Beloff and has a son named Diego, who was born in 1916 and died in 1918. During their marriage, he had another child named Marika from Maria Vorobieff-Stebelsk. They eventually divorced in 1921. -
Interest in Cubism (1912-1913)
After a brief visit to Mexico and returning to Paris, his art style significantly changed leaning towards cubism and his paintings were more abstract. Examples of his paintings that expressed cubism were the "View of Toledo" and "Portrait of Oscar Miestchaninoff". Artists embraced his art of cubism a year later. -
Political Inspiration (1914-1920)
Inspired by the Mexican Revolution and the Russian Revolution, he wanted to create art to reflect the lives of the working class and native people of Mexico. A trip to Italy in 1920 helped interest him in making murals after finding inspiration from Renaissance frescos. -
Political Affiliations (1920-1928)
During 1920, he joined the Mexican Communist Society during his first year of repatriation. (He would be kicked out in 1929). He founded the Revolutionary Union of Technical Workers, Painters, and Sculptors. From 1922-1928, he began a series of frescoes called "Ballad of the Proletarian Revolution". It consists of 120 paintings covering over 5,200 square feet of space. -
His First Mural
Returning to Mexico, he had received funding from the government to create a series of murals about the history and the people of Mexico on the walls of public buildings. He completed his first mural in 1922 at the Escuela Nacional Preparatoria in Mexico City. -
2nd Marriage
He married his 2nd wife, Guadalupe Marín in June 1922. He had two daughters with her: Ruth and Guadalupe. They eventually divorced on the year Rivera met Kahlo. -
Time In Russia
On the autumn of 1927, he arrived in Moscow with an invitation to participate in celebrating the 10th anniversary of the October Revolution. He would become friends with the founding director of the Museum of Modern Arts, Alfred H. Barr Jr. He was commissioned to paint a mural for the red army club in Moscow but was deported for being in anti-communist. -
3rd Marriage
In 1929, Diego Rivera married Frida Kahlo. One thing they both had in common was their interest in radical politics and Marxism. Due to their mutual infedelities and his violent temper, they ended their marriage in 1939, but then remarried in 1940. The marriage was gone when Frida Kahlo died. -
Beginning of Fame in the United States
When "The Frescoes of Diego Rivera" was released in New York City, his fame grew in the US. Between 1930 and 1931, he had painted three murals in San Francisco. They were -
Detroit
In 1932, he and Kahlo went to a commission in the Detroit Institute of Arts. He produced 27 panels known as "Detroit Industry Murals" to depict the evolution of Fort Moter Company. He completed it in 1933. -
Involvement with Rockefeller
Rivera was commissioned to paint a mural for the Rockefeller Center in New York. He was painting "Man at the Crossroads". The Rockefellers were insulted as the painting had Vladimir Lenin in the photo. When Rivera refused to remove Lenin in the photo, further work was canceled and it was removed as it was considered an offense in good taste but was recreated in a smaller scale in the Palace of Fine Arts in Mexico City. -
San Francisco
He traveled to San Francisco to paint 10 murals for the Golden Gate International Exposition of 1940 before completing various commissions in Mexico for the next few years. -
4th and Final Marriage
He married Emma Hurtado, who was his art dealer. -
Death
By the time he married his fourth wife, his health was in decline. He had traveled abroad for cancer treatment, but nothing worked. He died from heart failure in .
