The Art of Diego Rivera

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Diego Rivera

Diego Rivera (December 8, 1886 - November 24, 1957) was born Diego Maria de la Concepcion Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodriguez 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, New York City. His 1931 retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City was their second.

Diego Rivera, The Complete Murals

Diego in detail: The most comprehensive study of Rivera's work ever made A veritable folk hero in Latin America and Mexico's most important artist - along with his wife, painter Frida Kahlo - Diego Rivera (1886-1957) led a passionate life devoted to art and communism. After spending the 1910s in Europe, where he surrounded himself with other artists and embraced the Cubist movement, he returned to Mexico and began to paint the large-scale murals for which he is most famous. In his murals, he addressed social and political issues relating to the working class, earning him prophetic status among the peasants of Mexico. He was invited to create works abroad, most notably in the United States, where he stirred up controversy by depicting Lenin in his mural for the Rockefeller Center in New York City (the mural was destroyed before it was finished). Rivera's most remarkable work is his 1932 Detroit Industry, a group of 27 frescos at the Detroit Institute of Art in Michigan.
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Diego Rivera

In another life, before becoming one of the best known and most popular journalists in New York and the author of the bestselling memoir A Drinking Life, Pete Hamill studied art on the GI Bill in Mexico City. Upon seeing the monumental work of Jose Clemente Orozco, however, he abruptly lost his nerve: "It seemed an act of self-delusion to try to be a painter."

After 44 years, Hamill has found a way to integrate his early affair with art, his lifelong love of Mexico, and his narrative gifts in this riveting and lushly illustrated book on Diego Rivera, Mexico's best-known, widely loved muralist. Hamill's text, he says, was completed before the publication of Patrick Marnham's Dreaming with His Eyes Open: A Life of Diego Rivera. This one is less scholarly but respectably researched, and Hamill's fervent opinions on which of Rivera's works are worthy and which are the sad effluvia of a Communist Party hack are remarkably persuasive. Hamill's esthetic judgment has led him to avoid reproducing any second-rate clunkers. He has chosen the great murals, paintings, and drawings that suit the godlike stature of this outsize artist who lied, cheated, womanized, and evaded responsibility his entire life, but who worked like a demon in the service of his art.

Rivera's shabby genteel childhood; his flight to France during the 10-year Mexican Revolution, during which nearly a tenth of his countrymen died; his callous abandonment of his first wife; his ugly political gambits and high-flown society contacts; his ultimately sad relationships with both men and women--Hamill weaves it all into a fantastic read.
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Mexican Muralists: Orozco, Rivera, Siqueiros

In Mexico in the early 1920s, a growing, collective social consciousness gave rise to a revolutionary furor focused on liberating the country's workers from harsh conditions and poverty. In 1921, Mexican artists Diego Rivera, Jose Clemente Orozco, and David Alfaro Siqueiros were all commissioned by the government to create educational paintings on the walls of public buildings. After that initial experience, they devoted themselves almost exclusively to painting these large-scale murals--forming the foundation of a movement that would last 50 years. The muralists' work took up the themes of society and revolution. Often the paintings depicted historical vignettes like the story of Cuernavaca and Morelos crossing the barranca, or Mexico's ancient Indians. They satirized contemporary society, created ideal visions of peaceful families, and built up dark, imposing industrial cityscapes then leveled them by depicting the debauchery and death of the capitalist industrialists.

The paintings themselves reflect diverse artistic influences--surrealism, cubism, and illustration, most notable among them. Their bold colors and strong imagery practically bound out of the 150 color plates in this book. Mexican muralist and scholar Desmond Rochfort lucidly traces the development of the movement to place the work in context and provides a solid history of each of the artists' social and artistic influences. This is an excellent overview of work that should appeal both to fans of the individual artists and Mexican art in general.
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My Art, My Life: An Autobiography

A richly revealing document offering many telling insights into the mind and heart of a giant of 20th-century art. "There is no lack of exciting material. A lover at nine, a cannibal at 18, by his own account, Rivera was prodigiously productive of art and controversy."
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Diego Rivera: Great Illustrator (Biblioteca de Ilustradores Mexicanos)

Best known for his epic mural production, Mexican artist Diego Rivera was also an important easel painter and--as this book eloquently demonstrates--an extraordinary illustrator. This volume takes a detailed and long-overdue look at this rich and significant facet of Rivera's immense oeuvre: the illustrations he contributed to books and periodical publications over the course of his long career. Accompanying the numerous reproductions is a long and splendidly researched essay by noted art critic Raquel Tibol, an expert on the artist's work. The panorama of Rivera's themes--Modernist poetry, political issues, Mexican folklore, pre-Columbian America and many others--take the reader on a tour of the history of Mexican art in the first half of the twentieth century. Even those who think they know Rivera's work will find new aspects to explore in this beautiful book.
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Share your opinion of Diego Rivera!

  • artmind Sep 1, 2011 @ 6:57 am | delete
    So Im looking at the painting I thought was unsigned and find two symbols .I can not make them out.In one tiny square looks like a initial and date,in another square it looks like a symbol of some sort.Does this sound like Diego?
  • artmind Aug 22, 2011 @ 8:31 am | delete
    Hi just bought a vintage painting 12x16 at a Michigan thrift store.Looks to be a real diego oil.working man and women fishermen.Could be a port in Acapolco ,mountains-hills in water lots of color.Women has orange skirt holding flowers,beautiful.Question did Diego sometimes not sign{style spoke for itself} ,use grumbacker board, and paint in this size.Who is the expert on Diego so I can contact them and see what they say.Really dont want this little gem lost in the shuffle.Thanks
  • d-artist Feb 3, 2010 @ 11:09 am | delete
    love his art! and as an artist appreciate his style...great lens...5*
  • jaye3000 Apr 21, 2009 @ 7:44 am | delete
    Always loved his stuff...great lens :)
  • Cumberland Oct 12, 2008 @ 2:13 pm | delete
    Diego Rivera was a gifted, but controversial artist. Enjoyed your lens about him. 5 Stars.
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Diego Rivera art in the news!

Diego Rivera Painting Set to Break Auction Record
NEW YORK ? Mexican artist Diego Rivera's 1939 oil painting "Girl in Blue and White" could be the most expensive piece of Latin American art ever auctioned. Rivera's painting could break the auction record, fetching over 7.2 million, at the Sotheby's ...
Diego Rivera poised to top NY Latam art auctions
By Walker Simon | NEW YORK (Reuters) - A Diego Rivera portrait of a 10-year old girl, her head cocked and gaze wary, is expected to top this week's Latin American art auctions, where surrealist-tinged works by other artists are also primed to do well.
Diego Rivera artwork fails to sell at NYC auction
AP NEW YORK ? Mexican artist Diego Rivera's "Girl in Blue and White" failed to find a buyer at Sotheby's Latin American art auction in New York. The 1939 oil painting of 10-year-old Juanita Rosas was expected to fetch between $4 million and $6 million ...
Building a home for City College's Rivera mural
In 1999, Francesca Piqué, the Getty Museum's Florentine-born conservator, came to City College of San Francisco to inspect "The Pan American Unity Mural," the expansive Diego Rivera masterpiece that the Mexican muralist made on Treasure Island as World ...

Diego Rivera Art

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