Rivera's Early Years: 1886-1915
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Rivera is a
twin brother and their date of birth in 1886 in Guanajuato, Mexico. He lost his
brother after two years, and after the death of his brother, his family
migrated to Mexico City soon subsequently. When his parents discovered his art,
they invigorated his passion, and get him seated in Fine Arts (“the San Carlos
Academy”) at about age of 12 years old. he get studied customary painting and
sculpting techniques under the tutelage of a largely conservative faculty.
Gerado Murillo was among his fellow students at the academy, an artist who
would become a driving force behind the Mexican Mural Movement in the early
20th century, in which Rivera took part. In 1905, the two students joined a
group of other up-and-coming artists in an exhibition organized by the editors
of Savia Moderna magazine.
STUDY
Rivera
completed his studies in 1905, and the following year, he exhibited more than
two dozen paintings at the annual San Carlos Academy art show. One of his works
from this time, "La Era," or "The Threshing," displays
elements of Impressionism in the play of light and shadow and the artist's
distinctive use of color.
SPONSORSHIP
In 1907,
Rivera received a government sponsorship to study in Europe. The artist's first
stop was Madrid, where he studied with Realist painter Eduardo Chicharro Aguera
at the San Fernando Royal Academy. There, Rivera created paintings like
"Night Scene in Avila," a work containing elements of Realism and
Impressionism. At Madrid's Prada Museum, he familiarized himself with the
paintings of such Spanish masters as El Greco, Francisco Goya and Diego
Velazquez, all of whom would influence his artistic development.
From Madrid,
he moved to Paris where he lived off and on for several years among other
artists in the Montparnasse community, including Amedeo Modigliani and his
wife, artist Jeanne Hebuterne. Rivera showed six paintings in the 1910 exhibit
sponsored by The Society of Independent Artists in Paris, including the
realistic portrait, "Head of a Breton Woman." Other works the artists
completed during this time, including "Breton Girl" and "House
Over the Bridge," evidence an Impressionistic focus on the transformative
power of light.
However,
when Rivera returned to Paris after a brief visit to Mexico, his style
underwent a significant shift toward Cubism, which was enjoying its heyday in
Europe during the second decade of the 20th century. The Cubists sought to
portray multiple dimensions of a single subject through the use of geometric
forms or intersecting planes. Under the influence of Pablo Picasso and the
recently deceased Paul Cezanne, Rivera's paintings became progressively more
abstract. View of Toledo from 1912 contains both recognizable buildings and
Cubist elements in the landscape while "Portrait of Oscar
Miestchanin off" from the following year clearly illustrates the Cubist
influence on Rivera's style.
By 1913, the
artists had fully embraced Cubism in his art, as evidenced by such works as
"Woman at a Well" and Sailor at Breakfast. He submitted works to the
Salon d'Automne exhibit where the likes of Picasso, Marcel Duchamp and Andre
Lhote had shown their work over the previous years, attracting both negative
reactions and the positive attention of the art community.
Rivera's Middle Years: 1916-1928
Motherhood: Angelina and the Child from 1916 is among Rivera's last purely Cubist paintings. His artistic development headed in a fresh direction as the artist focused on recent political events such as the Mexican Revolution and the Russian Revolution of 1917, bringing his ideological views to the forefront.
His paintings
began to portray the working class combined with elements of his Mexican
heritage. A trip through Italy in 1920 had piqued the artist's interest in
Renaissance frescoes, and when he returned to Mexico the following year, he
became involved in mural painting.
Rivera
joined a group of artists, including muralist Jose Clemente Orozco and Mexican
realist David Alfaro Siqueiros, in a government-sponsored mural program.
Rivera's first foray into the genre, Creation, which he painted on a wall in
the National Preparatory School auditorium in Mexico City, depicts a heavenly
host with Renaissance haloes.
The artist
also joined the Mexican Communist Society during that first year of his
repatriation. He founded the Revolutionary Union of Technical Workers, Painters
and Sculptors as well. He began a series of frescoes later in 1922 that focused
on Mexican society and the country's revolutionary past, entitled "Ballad
of the Proletarian Revolution," that he would not complete until 1928. The
finished work, consisting of over 120 frescoes covering more than 5,200 square
feet, is installed in Mexico City's Secretariat of Public Education building.
By now the
artist was well into his 30s, and the Diego Rivera painting style had come into
its own, featuring large figures with simplified lines and rich colors. Many of
his scenes tell the stories of workers such as miners, farmers, industrial
laborers and peasants. His paintings of flower sellers with calla lilies are
among his best known. Some frescos show festivals, such as "The Day of the
Dead" and "The Maize Festival" from 1924. At this time, Rivera
began work on a mural for the National School of Agriculture in Chapingo,
Mexico, which he entitled, "The Liberated Earth with Natural Forces
Controlled by Man."
Rivera's Later Years: 1927-1957
The artist
took part in a delegation to the Soviet Union in 1927 to celebrate the 10-year
anniversary of the October Revolution. While in Moscow, Rivera met Alfred H.
Barr, Jr., who would become a friend and patron as well as the director of the
Museum of Modern Art. Following his return to Mexico City, Rivera divorced his
first wife, Lupe Marin, and married fellow Mexican artist Frida Kahlo. He also
began work on a commissioned series of murals for the Palace of Cortez in
Cuernavaca.
His fame
grew in North America as "The Frescoes of Diego Rivera" came out in
New York City. American architect Timothy Pflueger brought the artist to San
Francisco with the offer of some commissions.
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