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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: Hello and Welcome to This Day in History Class, a

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Speaker 1: show that paints a picture of history one day at

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Speaker 1: a time. I'm Gay Bluesier, and in this episode, we're

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Speaker 1: looking at the life and work of one of Mexico's

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Speaker 1: leading artists, a bold and controversial painter who believed that

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Speaker 1: art could enrich the lives of everyone if they were

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Speaker 1: just given the chance to see it. The day was

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Speaker 1: December eighth, eighteen eighty six. Renowned muralist Diego Rivera was

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Speaker 1: born in Guanajuato, Mexico. Now considered one of the greatest

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Speaker 1: Mexican painters of the twentieth century, Rivera made it his

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Speaker 1: life's mission to create art that reflected the lives of

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Speaker 1: the working class. He also made make sure his art

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Speaker 1: was accessible to the working class by displaying it not

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Speaker 1: in high end galleries but on the walls of public buildings.

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Speaker 1: Through his groundbreaking and often controversial murals, Rivera reintroduced fresco

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Speaker 1: painting into modern art and architecture, and championed the idea

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Speaker 1: that fine art belongs to everyone, not just the elite.

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Speaker 1: Growing up in Central Mexico, Diego Rivera found his passion

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Speaker 1: for art at an early age. When he was ten

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Speaker 1: years old, he went to study drawing and painting at

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Speaker 1: the San Carlos Academy of Fine Arts in Mexico City. Then,

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Speaker 1: in nineteen o seven, he moved to Europe to continue

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Speaker 1: his education. He first studied in Spain before traveling to France,

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Speaker 1: where he lived and worked at an artist community in

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Speaker 1: the Montparnasse neighborhood of Paris. He spent the next fourteen

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Speaker 1: years there, working alongside many leading artists of the era

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Speaker 1: and witnessing the emergence of Cubism by the works of

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Speaker 1: artists such as Pablo Picasso and Georges Broc. Rivera embraced

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Speaker 1: the new avant garde's style and found modest success as

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Speaker 1: a Cubist painter for several years. Around nineteen seventeen, however,

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Speaker 1: Rivera encountered the paintings of Paul Sezon and quickly pivoted

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Speaker 1: toward post Impressionism. It was at that point that his paintings,

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Speaker 1: now suffused with simple forms and vivid colors, began to

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Speaker 1: attract attention and were displayed at several exhibitions in Paris.

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Speaker 1: The only problem was that Rivera didn't much care for

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Speaker 1: stuffy art galleries, and he resented that his work was

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Speaker 1: viewed as something only to be enjoyed by the rich

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Speaker 1: and privileged. The artist was also starting to feel the

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Speaker 1: weight of world events of his day, including the Mexican

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Speaker 1: Revolution of nineteen fourteen and the Russian Revolution of nineteen seventeen.

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Speaker 1: He wanted to channel the political ideals of those movements

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Speaker 1: into his art work, but in order to do that,

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Speaker 1: he needed to first find and a new way of painting,

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Speaker 1: one that would allow him to reach a much wider audience.

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Speaker 1: To that end, Rivera left France in nineteen twenty and

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Speaker 1: began traveling throughout Italy in search of inspiration. He eventually

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Speaker 1: found it in the form of Renaissance frescoes, a kind

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Speaker 1: of mural painting done on fresh plaster. It turned out

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Speaker 1: to be just the new medium he'd been looking for,

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Speaker 1: a way to free his art from the walls of

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Speaker 1: galleries and museums and get it into the everyday lives

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Speaker 1: of working class people. With that goal in mind, Rivera

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Speaker 1: returned to Mexico and obtained a grant from the government

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Speaker 1: to create a series of murals depicting the country's native

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Speaker 1: peoples and history. He completed these works on the walls

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Speaker 1: of universities and other public buildings throughout the nineteen twenties,

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Speaker 1: gaining a good deal of fame in the process. The

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Speaker 1: subjects of his large scale works were suitably grand in scope,

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Speaker 1: focusing largely on human development and the effects of technological progress,

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Speaker 1: both good and bad. In the nineteen thirties and forties,

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Speaker 1: Rivera made several visits to the United States with the

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Speaker 1: hope of bringing his art to the public spaces there

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Speaker 1: as well. In nineteen thirty two, for example, he arrived

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Speaker 1: in Detroit in the midst of the Great Depression, where

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Speaker 1: he was commissioned by none other than Henry Ford to

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Speaker 1: create an ode to the American Worker on the walls

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Speaker 1: of the Detroit Institute of Arts. The piece was completed

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Speaker 1: the following year and provided a detailed view of industrial

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Speaker 1: life in the US, with special attention paid to the

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Speaker 1: car plant workers of Detroit. Rivera's next commission came from

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Speaker 1: the well heeled Rockefeller family of New York City. They

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Speaker 1: asked him to paint an aspirational mural for the lobby

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Speaker 1: of the RCA building in Rockefeller Center, and though the

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Speaker 1: artist complied, the family wasn't happy with the end result.

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Speaker 1: The mural, known as Man at the Crossroads, was meant

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Speaker 1: to express the many socio political, industrial, and so scientific

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Speaker 1: possibilities of the twentieth century, not all of which were pleasant.

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Speaker 1: In one panel of the painting, for instance, Rivera depicted

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Speaker 1: the fight for workers' rights with a scene of a

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Speaker 1: May Day demonstration that showed workers marching with red banners.

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Speaker 1: Given that the artist was a lifelong Marxist, that scene

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Speaker 1: alone may have been enough to prompt a few questions

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Speaker 1: from his patrons, but Rivera went a step further by

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Speaker 1: including Russian communist leader Vladimir Lenin at the front of

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Speaker 1: the procession. The Rockefellers requested that Rivera remove Lenin's portrait,

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Speaker 1: but the painter refused, insisting it was necessary to portray

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Speaker 1: the conflicting capitalist and socialist ideologies that had come to

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Speaker 1: define the era. The Rockefellers were unconvinced, though, and after

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Speaker 1: ordering Rivera to stop work on the mural, they hid

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Speaker 1: it from the public's view and had it chipped off

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Speaker 1: the wall the following year. Undeterred, Rivera used the money

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Speaker 1: from the Rockefeller Project to create a mural for them

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Speaker 1: the Independent Labor Institute that featured Lenin as its central figure.

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Speaker 1: Then he recreated his Man at the Crossroads mural at

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Speaker 1: the Palace of Fine Arts in Mexico City, this time

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Speaker 1: calling it Man Controller of the Universe. The detailed scene

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Speaker 1: even includes a swipe at Rivera's former patrons, depicting a

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Speaker 1: caricature of J. D. Rockefeller Junior cavorting at a night

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Speaker 1: club with syphilis bacteria floating above his head. Of course,

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Speaker 1: Rivera himself was no stranger to promiscuity. He fathered several

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Speaker 1: children with his first two wives in a string of lovers,

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Speaker 1: and is believed to have abandoned all of them. His

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Speaker 1: most notorious relationship, however, was with fellow Mexican painter Frieda Callo,

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Speaker 1: who was about twenty years his junior. She became his

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Speaker 1: third wife in nineteen twenty nine, and while their mutual

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Speaker 1: infidelities and his domestic abuse led to their divorce a

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Speaker 1: decade later, they ultimately remarried in nineteen five. That same year,

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Speaker 1: Rivera returned to mural painting after a year's long dry spell,

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Speaker 1: creating one for the Golden Gate International Exposition in San Francisco.

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Speaker 1: He continued making art throughout the nineteen forties, including a

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Speaker 1: captivating series of murals on Mexican history called From the

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Speaker 1: pre Hispanic Civilization to the Conquest. In nineteen fifty four,

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Speaker 1: Freed de Callo passed away unexpectedly from pneumonia. In the

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Speaker 1: following year, Rivera married his longtime art dealer, Emma Hortado.

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Speaker 1: She cared for the artist's own failing health for the

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Speaker 1: next several years, until he died of heart failure on

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Speaker 1: November twenty fourth, nineteen fifty seven, at the age of seventy.

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Speaker 1: A somewhat divisive figure due to his turbulent personal life

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Speaker 1: and radical politics, Diego Rivera is still held in high

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Speaker 1: regard for the profound impact he had on the international

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Speaker 1: art world. His unique painting style, provocative ideas, and bold

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Speaker 1: conception of public art continue to influence the lives of

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Speaker 1: both artists and layman alike. I'm Gabe Lucier and hopefully

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Speaker 1: you now know a little more about art history today

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Speaker 1: than you did yesterday. You can learn even more about

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Speaker 1: the subject by following us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram

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Speaker 1: at TDI HC Show. You can also rate and review

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Speaker 1: the show on Apple Podcasts, or you can get in

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Speaker 1: touch directly by writing to this Day at iHeartMedia dot com.

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Speaker 1: Thanks to Chandler Mays for producing the show, and thank

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Speaker 1: you for listening. I'll see you back here again soon

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Speaker 1: for another day in History class