This was a purely proletarian concept of the fusion of art and activism. Rivera was an indefatigable activist with a creative voice that spoke on behalf of the the poor and powerless, the indigenous and the indigent. What Fritz Langs "Metropolis" and other German expressionist films did for social commentary during the anonymity of the industrial age, Diego's art did to foster socialist ideals that blazed a trail in the creative forest of the "lost generation" joining ranks with writers, poets and songwriters from Upton Sinclair, Joe Hill, and Woody Gutherie to the union organizers of the IWW, the One Big Union!
On a sexual level, he was a true man of the people, well, women at the very least. He had a Spainards voracious sexual appetite and enjoyed smelling the many roses that he fertilized in the female garden that he nourished among his followers and friends. Along the path he finally found his artistic soulmate and lifes companion in a tempermental and fiery young female artist, Frida Kahlo. Kahlo was a delightful incindiary mixture of German, Jewish, Native American and Spanish heritage. While Diego was off in bed with one of his female conquests, Frida Kahlo, hungry for both genders was following her bi-sexual instincts to where ever the road of sensuality led her. Later in Mexico she ended up having an affair with Leon Trotsky who was a close friend of Diego, proving that poltics aside, Frida was literally hot to trotsky!
Born south of the border in Guanajuato, Mexico in December of 1886, the family remained there until 1892 when they packed up their belongings for a move to Mexico City considered to be the center of the Hispanic universe whcih indeed it was. Culture and art flourished in the capital city, and it was here that a precocious 10 year old Diego decided on the direction he wished his life to follow which was that of an artist. While attending school, Diego had his first art exhibit at the schools local showcase for their artistic students. Diego, never one for holding back, had two dozen works of art on display at the show.
As fortune would have it, the governor of Vera Cruz saw his works a few years after the school show. Realizing his potential the governor obtained a scholarship for Diego so he could pursue his studies of art and art history in Europe, the art capital of the world. He studied under the great Spanish painter Chicharro and also Jose Posada a local art teacher. As time progressed, Diego's art also advanced in form and substance, it was sheer visual poetry in motion. It was during his European period in 1909, when he was 23, that one of Diegos female comrades in arts, a fellow painter, Maria Gutierrez introduced him to a young Russian painter, Angelina Belhoff who was 30 at the time. The chemistry was right and together they became two vagabonds traveling throughout Europe on a raucous journey of art, sex and adventure. Angelina eventually became Diego' first wife, but, not the last.
It soon dawned on Diego, that he had hit an impenetrable brick wall as he had all the technical training he felt necessary. In fact, the technical aspects were starting to cause his art to atrophy, so he bid a fond "adios" to Spain, and crossed the border into France and on to Paris for art and adventure as he immersed himself in the libertine lifestyle of the Parisien Left Banke, where the likes of Gertrude Stein held court in her salon of intellectuals that included painter Pablo Picasso and the mans man of literature, Ernest Hemingway. It was here that Diego came under the influence of the Cubists and the Cubist movement of ort, which was championed by Picasso and Cezanne. Diego dove into the cubist ocean of art in 1913 and devoted his creativity to the cubist cause for the next five years. (During that period, in 1917, on the the Tenth Anniversary of the October Revolution in Russia, leftist from around the world, including Diego Rivera and Angelina Belhoff, made the pilgrimage to Moscow as an official of the Mexican Communist Party, of which by now he was a card carrying member in good standing, and a cultural celebrity on top of that.)
In France, the intellectuals and the rich were devouring his works of art in a feeding frenzy a cannibal would be proud of. Rivera's were being purchased by the very rich to hang on their walls and adorn their abodes. Diego had an epiphany of epic proportions, deciding that the rich should not be the only ones to enjoy art, in fact, art belongs to the working class and the poor. The planets of fate must have been in perfect alignment in 1918 the year that World War One, the conflict that engulfed the European continent ended. This is when Diego crossed paths with Elie Faure, who insisted Diego look to murals and frescoes as new outlets and mediums for his art. Remember, the medium is the message, and the bigger, the better! These offered him the opportunity to utilize large public buildings as canvases to create great messages. Public art for the proletarian masses who would gather and absorb the art's message as it adorned public buildings on public display to be enjoyed by the public. This was all the prompting Diego needed. Bags packed, he and Angelina traveled to Italy to study the massive murals and frenetic frescoes created by the Masters, some of the works hundreds of years old.
Across the ocean at the same time, in Diego's own backyard in Mexico, the Revolucion Mexicana, which began in 1910 was now coming to a close in 1920. It began as an uprising led by Francisco Madero against dictator Porfino Diaz. The revolt crossed the line of honest revolution and degenerated into a civil war involving a cornucopia of fractured factions involved in a fierce free-for-all for positions of power, with or without the peoples interest at heart. While the revolution/civil war came to a close, there was also a renaissance taking shape in the art world of that country. This was the opportunity Diego's creative spirit had craved...the opportunity to create meaningful art in his home country. Diego wanted desperately to be a part of it, so after a dozen or so years drifting around the art world of Europe, Diego left his once beloved Angelina Belhoff behind in Paris in 1921 thus ending their common law marriage, while he returned to his homeland. Angelina never did marry anyone else, on any level, but, eventually she ended up as a working artist in Mexico City for decades just to be close to Diego.. She died in Mexico City in 1969.
One year later, in 1922, two events occurred changing the course of Diegos river of life. First, Diego created his most famous work "Creation" which was the crown jewel of art on the wall of the University of Mexico that placed him immediately on a pedestal as an icon of the growing Mexican art movement. On the personal side, things were moving like a tectonic plate shifting the crust of Diegos romantic world, when he ended up marrying Guadalupe Marin who had traveled with him throughout Mexico during his earlier studies of art prior to his move to Europe. At the same time he also created over one hundred frescoes over the course of the next few years which solidified his fame as a muralist in Mexico. (Although he would later divorce her to be with Frida Kahlo, Guadelupe was the subject of portrait paintings by both Diego and Frida, and is featured in Diegos masterpiece, "Creation" as "Strength, Song, and Woman". She was not shy and also posed in the nude for Rivera's "Chapingo" mural.)
This was the landmark year, however, as Diego and Frida Kahlo were on a clear course for a head-on collision that would forever fuse the two together as one in the history of affairs of the heart, and affairs of their art. While madly in love, they both still managed to engage in many carnal affairs outside of their marriage, that permeated their relationship until death did them part. (Diego and Frida would marry twice during the torrid and tempestuous years of their life together) Although both had many affairs, both were the one true love of each others lives!)
Although they met for the second time in 1922, nothing incindiary happened, until 1928. Diego the Communist Party party animal of Mexico attended a local get together of artists and intellectuals, and as fate would have it, Frida was also in attendance. It's hard to say what happened that night between them, but Diego now 42, and Kahlo now 22 were married a year later in 1929, the same year he began working to create the Labor Union of Technical Workers, Painters and Sculptors which became a reality. Not all Diego's works were in Mexico and Europe. In 1930 he was commissioned by Nelson Rockefeller, (Communism and Capitalism do make for strange bedfellows at times!) Things came to a head when Rockefeller took issue with Diego's mural "Man at the Crossroads" where Diego included Lenin prominently proletarian in the mural. It was decomissioned and in fact Rockefeller had it destroyed and removed from the wall. Diego redid the mural in Mexico City and this time not only included Lenin, but added Leon Trotsky for good measure.
The politics get murky in Mexico at this point. Leon Trotsky who had fallen out of favor in the Soviet Union (that seemed to happen a lot in those days!) had sought political asylum in Mexico, so Diego intervened and spoke to the Mexican president who agreed to it. Mr. and Mrs. Trotsky, (that sounds wierd doesn't it?) moved into Diegos home and became extremely close friends, traveling together and socializing, until political conflicts created a gulf that seperated them. Or was it something else that drove a wedge between them?
Two events in 1940 happened that also changed the course of the River of Rivera. He and Frida seperated and divorced, but were remarried that same year. Still the affairs went on unabated and this was the year that Frida also had her affair with Leon Trotsky under Mrs. Trotsky nose and under Diego's roof. I feel strongly that this was the straw that broke the back of their friendship and not politics, and based on that, it seems to be the one affair Frida had that had an impact on Diego. She also had many lesbian affairs but those too did not affect Diegos feelings for Frida.
In addition to Trotsky trotting of to bed with Frida, there was an attempt on his life in 1940 sanctioned by Stalin back in the USSR. It failed but a successful mortal attempt was accomplished months later in August. Stalins paranoia was running like a runaway train back home in Mother Russia but the long arm of the Kremlin reached all the way to Mexico City!
WWII had ended in 1945 and by 1947 the world was embroiled in the Cold War that could ignite and turn red hot at any moment. Diego ever the activist created controversy once again with the inclusion of the slogan, "God Does Not Exist" in a mural at the Hotel del Prado. Once again, Diego's work was banned and kept from public view for nine years and only then allowed the light of day. The fabulous Fifties weren't so fab for Diego either as his work entitled War and the Dream of Peace not only included Stalin, but Red China's Mao Tse Tung on display in the Palacio Nacional de Bellas Artes and it too came under attack.
Diego and Frida took their activism to the streets as they engaged in demonstrations against the CIA for it's involvement in the ouster of the Guatemalan president in 1954. That same year, Frida Kahlo died at the age of 47. Being resilient however, Diego got married one more time, this time to his art dealer, Emma Hurtado, one year later, but, the end of the long and winding socialist road was facing Diego as he began to undergo cobalt treatments. By 1956 he returned to Mexico to recuperate away from Emma, and moved into the home of old friend Dolores Olmedo, and life as Diego knew it, ended in 1957 in his studio. He died of heart failure.
Artists, Activists, Lovers! Diego and Frida were all of these and more. Their legacy lives on today in their surviving works including Diegos massive industrial masterpiece in the Detroit Institute of Arts depicting the working class under the thumb of the industrial giants. One thing is certain...he may have died from heart failure but during his life he only got stronger at his craft and never suffered from art failure!
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