A MASTERPIECE, IN THE HISTORY OF PAINTING

(16) DIEGO RIVERA

Dos Mujeres, portrait of Angelina Beloff and Maria Dolores Bastian (1914)

Diego Rivera, born December 8, 1886 in Guanajuato (Mexico) and died November 24, 1957 in San Ángel (a wealthy district of Mexico City), is a Mexican painter. Although throughout his life he practiced easel painting, Rivera is known worldwide for his murals, made in Mexico, mainly in Mexico City, and in the United States. His murals are inseparable from his socialist convictions and fascination with Mexico’s pre-Hispanic past.

From 1913 to 1918, his paintings are of Cubist inspiration (including Zapatista Landscape – The Guérillero, 1915). As a result of a conflict with the art critic Pierre Reverdy, he breaks with cubism and returns to figuration. His trip to Italy in 1920 made him discover the murals that inspired him for his later work, his most famous murals. He uses for this the traditional pigments used in the pre-Hispanic era. The topics dealt with by the government commission are social and historical, concerning the recent official history of Mexico. [Wikipedia]

Portrait of Diego Rivera, 1932 Mar. 19.Photo source: commons.wikimedia.org