Rivera, Diego

Mexican Muralists: Orozco, Rivera, Siqueiros

In Mexico in the early 1920s, a growing, collective social consciousness gave rise to a revolutionary furor focused on liberating the country's workers from harsh conditions and poverty. In 1921, Mexican artists Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, and David Alfaro Siqueiros were all commissioned by the government to create educational paintings on the walls of public buildings. After that initial experience, they devoted themselves almost exclusively to painting these large-scale murals--forming the foundation of a movement that would last 50 years. The muralists' work took up the themes of society and revolution. Often the paintings depicted historical vignettes like the story of Cuernavaca and Morelos crossing the barranca, or Mexico's ancient Indians. They satirized contemporary society, created ideal visions of peaceful families, and built up dark, imposing industrial cityscapes then leveled them by depicting the debauchery and death of the capitalist industrialists.

The paintings themselves reflect diverse artistic influences--surrealism, cubism, and illustration, most notable among them. Their bold colors and strong imagery practically bound out of the 150 color plates in this book. Mexican muralist and scholar Desmond Rochfort lucidly traces the development of the movement to place the work in context and provides a solid history of each of the artists' social and artistic influences. This is an excellent overview of work that should appeal both to fans of the individual artists and Mexican art in general. --Jordana Moskowitz

Los tres grandes: Jose Clemente Orozco, Diego Rivera, and David Alfaro Siqueiros. Now legendary, these men have emerged as the most prominent figures of the famed Mexican mural movement, which lasted from the '20s through the early '70s and was hailed as the most significant achievement in public art of the 20th century. The dramatic story of the movement is told here in a fascinating history of the artists, accompanied by over 100 spectacular color reproductions of the murals. Showcasing popular as well as lesser-known works from around the US and Mexico, this is the first high-quality paperback to do justice to a subject that will captivate every lover of Mexican art and culture, Rivera fan, and art historian, as well as anyone who appreciates a beautiful, intelligent art book.

Diego Rivera, The Complete Murals

Diego in detail: The most comprehensive study of Rivera's work ever made A veritable folk hero in Latin America and Mexico's most important artist - along with his wife, painter Frida Kahlo - Diego Rivera (1886-1957) led a passionate life devoted to art and communism. After spending the 1910s in Europe, where he surrounded himself with other artists and embraced the Cubist movement, he returned to Mexico and began to paint the large-scale murals for which he is most famous. In his murals, he addressed social and political issues relating to the working class, earning him prophetic status among the peasants of Mexico. He was invited to create works abroad, most notably in the United States, where he stirred up controversy by depicting Lenin in his mural for the Rockefeller Center in New York City (the mural was destroyed before it was finished). Rivera's most remarkable work is his 1932 Detroit Industry, a group of 27 frescos at the Detroit Institute of Art in Michigan.

My Art, My Life: An Autobiography

Diego Rivera, 1886-1957: A Revolutionary Spirit in Modern Art (Taschen Basic Art)

Revolutionary and troublemaker Diego Rivera (1886-1957) pioneered public art - particularly with his magnificent murals - that was both highly advanced and profoundly accessible. His tumultuous career is surveyed in this richly illustrated Spanish-language entry in the Basic Art series celebrating major artists. This enticing collection shows both the wide range of his art and its influence on other painters and artistic movements.

Diego Rivera

In another life, before becoming one of the best known and most popular journalists in New York and the author of the bestselling memoir A Drinking Life, Pete Hamill studied art on the GI Bill in Mexico City. Upon seeing the monumental work of José Clemente Orozco, however, he abruptly lost his nerve: "It seemed an act of self-delusion to try to be a painter."

After 44 years, Hamill has found a way to integrate his early affair with art, his lifelong love of Mexico, and his narrative gifts in this riveting and lushly illustrated book on Diego Rivera, Mexico's best-known, widely loved muralist. Hamill's text, he says, was completed before the publication of Patrick Marnham's Dreaming with His Eyes Open: A Life of Diego Rivera. This one is less scholarly but respectably researched, and Hamill's fervent opinions on which of Rivera's works are worthy and which are the sad effluvia of a Communist Party hack are remarkably persuasive. Hamill's esthetic judgment has led him to avoid reproducing any second-rate clunkers. He has chosen the great murals, paintings, and drawings that suit the godlike stature of this outsize artist who lied, cheated, womanized, and evaded responsibility his entire life, but who worked like a demon in the service of his art.

Rivera's shabby genteel childhood; his flight to France during the 10-year Mexican Revolution, during which nearly a tenth of his countrymen died; his callous abandonment of his first wife; his ugly political gambits and high-flown society contacts; his ultimately sad relationships with both men and women--Hamill weaves it all into a fantastic read. The book is not as balanced as Dreaming with His Eyes Open, but is nonetheless a passionate first look at an artist whose complicated life will probably still be examined decades from now. --Peggy Moorman

Diego Rivera (1886-1957) was the greatest Mexican painter of the century-an audacious muralist, voracious lover, and ardent leftist who befriended Pablo Picasso, married Frida Kahlo, and quarreled with Leon Trotsky. Pete Hamill, a best-selling novelist and one of America's most esteemed journalists, gives us an extraordinary book, now in paperback, on Rivera's life and art. Hamill, once a young art student in Mexico City, shows how, despite the political passions, Rivera created a body of work that still astonishes. Filled with superb reproductions and documentary photographs, Diego Rivera is a tour de force.

"In this tight and balanced look at Mexican painter Diego Rivera, Pete Hamill focuses on Rivera's work. While Hamill touches on Rivera's unpredictable temperament . . . notably displayed in his infamous marriage to Frida Kahlo . . . this gorgeous book devotes itself to Rivera's development as artist and political icon. . . .Hamill deftly shows why Rivera deserves to be remembered as one of the great painters of the twentieth century."-The Progressive

"A fascinating book . . . Hamill writes authoritatively about Rivera's work and diverse styles."-The New York Times Book Review

Diego Rivera: Great Illustrator (Biblioteca de Ilustradores Mexicanos)

Best known for his epic mural production, Mexican artist Diego Rivera was also an important easel painter and--as this book eloquently demonstrates--an extraordinary illustrator. This volume takes a detailed and long-overdue look at this rich and significant facet of Rivera's immense oeuvre: the illustrations he contributed to books and periodical publications over the course of his long career. Accompanying the numerous reproductions is a long and splendidly researched essay by noted art critic Raquel Tibol, an expert on the artist's work. The panorama of Rivera's themes--Modernist poetry, political issues, Mexican folklore, pre-Columbian America and many others--take the reader on a tour of the history of Mexican art in the first half of the twentieth century. Even those who think they know Rivera's work will find new aspects to explore in this beautiful book.

Frida Kahlo & Diego Rivera ( Two books in slip case) (Temporis Collection)

Diego Rivera: Postcards (Collectible Postcards)

Diego Rivera was perhaps the most beloved, well-known, and controversial Mexican artist of our era. Rivera's most famous paintings combine a warm sensitivity to rural life, while his murals explode with fiery political messages. Here are 22 of Rivera's most illustrious works, perfect for Mexican art lovers. 22 full-color postcards.

Diego Rivera: A Retrospective

A celebration of a renowned artist and political activist.

Diego Rivera, in a career that spanned sixty years, produced some of the most distinctive and socially powerful works in modern art. Rivera was very much a twentieth-century renaissance man. He was a painter, printmaker, sculptor, book illustrator, one of the first collectors of pre-Columbian art, as well as a political activist. In both the United States and Mexico, Rivera's monumental frescos gave life to revolutionary themes, often offending the critics as well as the public. In New York's Rockefeller Center, for instance, his murals were destroyed because of public outrage over their strongly pro-communist content. This volume illustrates Rivera's life and work from his early years at the Mexican Academy of San Carlos and studies in Spain; his subsequent eleven-year sojourn in Paris in the first part of this century; to his efforts to establish a truly national Mexican style in the murals for which he is most famous. Accompanying Rivera's work are essays by noted scholars reevaluating his place in the history of modern art. 200 color plates, 325 black-and-white illustrations.

Diego Rivera: The Detroit Industry Murals

A beautifully illustrated in-depth study of the most important North American work by the best-known Mexican muralist, Diego Rivera. Early in the Depression, Diego Rivera was commissioned by Edsel Ford to create a series of murals in the gallery of the Detroit Institute of Arts, giant frescos whose theme would be America's industrial might. This volume studies the astonishing results and gives us a remarkably close look at Diego and his wife, Frida Kahlo. Rivera's Detroit Industry murals are one of this country's greatest treasures. In addition to providing full coverage and analysis of the murals, this volume includes chapters on the murals' planning and antecedents, Rivera's working methods (which can be read as a primer on frescos), Diego and Frida's lives for their nine months in Detroit, and the public's dramatic response to the strong socialist/communist themes in the works.