Guanajuato
Diego Rivera was born in Guanajuato City, Mexico on December 8, 1886. His name given at birth was Jose Diego Rivera, but eventually claimed that his full name was Diego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez. Born to middle class Mexican parent’s Maria del Pilar Barriento, and a respected school teacher Diego Rivera. They lived in a three-story house close to silver mines. Young Diego only lived in Guanajauato City for ten years and was later forced to move because of family debt. His family later moved to Mexico City where he started to pursue his artistic career. Rivera describes his house in Mexico City as “a poor house in a poor neighborhood”. 5 He was enrolled in the Liceo Catolico Hispano Mexicano School where he respected the instructors and took interest in school. Diego was later enrolled in evening classes in the San Carlos Academy of Fine Arts which had a good reputation and served as training for many pursuing artists. Diego remained in the school until he was expelled in 1902 for attending student revolts that were occuring at the time. After being expelled young Diego was offered a scholarship by the governor of Veracruz to travel to Spain for three hundred pesos a month. He gladly accepted it and continued to pursue his artistic career.

Europe
Once Rivera arrived in Spain he was working with Joaquin Sorolla and Eduardo Chicharo y Aguera, both were considered very fashionable Spanish painters at the time. He worked with both for several years while in Spain. Rivera then traveled to France, Belgium, and Holland. He decided to settle down in Paris, France in 1911. While living in Paris Rivera was influenced by many art forms, especially cubism. By 1913 Rivera had completely emerged into the art form of Cubism which is characterized by the reduction and fragmentation of natural forms into abstract structures presented in different planes. Rivera later met Picasso who approved of Rivera’s style. Rivera was excited to be accepted by an artist he admired. “Being accepted by the master of Cubism himself was, of course, a source of tremendous personal satisfaction to me”.15 Rivera was considered a second-generation Cubist, and was actively pursuing this type of art from 1913 to 1917. Once Rivera mastered this art form, it slowly shifted to a cubism that was very personal and unique.

Mexico
Rivera returned to Mexico in 1910 in the middle of a political turmoil between the Madero supporters and the supporters of the Porfirio Diaz regimen.7 It was these events that allowed him to realize his true inspiration.  His major ambition was to artistically interpret the events, ideas, and hopes of the Mexican people. He did this by painting murals that talked to the ordinary people. His murals’ main focus was that of politics and the debate between democratic power and that of totalitarian power. The murals that Rivera painted in Mexico granted him so much fame that he was seen as one of the greatest muralists at that time. Not only were his murals famous, but his communist political views also turned him into a political icon at the time.

United States

New York
On November 13, 1931 Rivera arrived in New York to work on his show at the new Museum of Modern Art. His exhibition included fifty-six easel paintings and eighty-nine watercolors, drawings, and studies for murals.8 His show was a huge success with more than 57,000 visitors a month.9 The reviews of his show were almost all positive. Diego Rivera was now considered a major artist on the world stage.10

Detroit
After his major success in New York, Rivera was asked to reflect on a painting of the industry of Detroit. Here he spent months analyzing the industry of Detroit. “For the industrial material of this place, I feel the enthusiasm I felt ten years ago at the time of my return to Mexico with the peasant material.”11 Rivera was truly excited to pursue this mural. He painted a great mural centered on an automobile assembly line, which he used as a metaphor to show a communist society. Although the assembly line was a metaphor for a communist society the mural did not have much controversy. More than 86,000 people saw the mural on the first month it was open.12 Although the mural in overall was consider a success Rivera and his wife Frida Kahlo were completely exhausted from life in Detroit and decided to leave for New York in 1933 where Rivera was to paint another mural in the RCA building in the grand new complex called Rockefeller Center.

New York Revisited
After finishing the mural in Detroit, Rivera was often physically ill. His eyes bothered him and he developed sores in his mouth. From his lack of physical well being Rivera lost around a hundred pounds which somewhat weaken his capacity for work. His physical weakness did not interfere with his motivation to work on this mural. He entitled his mural, “Man at the Crossroads Looking with Hope and High Vision to the Choosing of a New and Better Future”. The sketch of the mural was rapidly approved by the Rockefellers, and Rivera soon started to work on the mural. Rivera worked steadily on the mural from March to mid-April of 1933. Then, a reporter from New York noticed that Rivera was painting a heroic head of Vladimir Llyich Lenin. This quickly turned into a scandal, but Rivera did not think much of it. “When I think of the supreme type of labor leader, I certainly think of Lenin”.14 Rivera also faced another problem. He altered the original sketch he pres

ented to the Rockefellers by the insertion of Lenin. His benefactors requested that he change the portrait of the leader in the Russian Revolt immediately. Rivera refused and was forced to cease his painting. The mural was then covered and eventually destroyed.
Rivera then made a remake of a similar mural that is still present in Mexico City in the Palacio de  bellas Artes. He named this mural, “Man, Controller of the Universe”.

Diego Rivera- Throckmorton Gallery NYC

The Last Days
Tired of the north, Diego and his wife finally settled in San Angel, Mexico where Diego was exhausted and depressed over his belief that his painting was no good. His last mural in 1952 was considered a disaster. 13 The mural showed a heroic Stalin. The Mexican government turned it down not because of the meaning of the mural but because of the horrible quality. In January 1955, Rivera was diagnosed with cancer. He then went for a long trip to Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. After this trip Rivera was never well again and died in his studio on November 24, 1957. The cause of death was heart failure.