Diego Rivera

Diego Rivera was a Mexican painter and towering figure within the country’s muralist movement, famed for his tempestuous marriage to Frida Kahlo. Having initially trained in Mexico City, between 1907-21 he lived mostly in Europe where he experimented with elements of Cubism. Following the conclusion of the Mexican Revolution (1910-20), Rivera returned to the country of his birth and produced a series of monumental frescos. These mural projects were sponsored by the new government to promote nationalist sentiment and the new revolutionary spirit. His clever use of both traditional and modernist techniques to represent the history of the Mexican people through a socialist lens brought him widespread attention. Between 1930-4, he significantly shaped the direction of Roosevelt’s Federal Art Project after being commissioned to paint murals in San Francisco, Detroit and New York. The combination of his much publicized womanizing and radical politics made him a celebrity within the international art world.