Diego Rivera: The Complete Murals

Here are the life and works of Diego Rivera: folk hero, husband of Frida Kahlo, and one of Mexico’s greatest artists. His giant murals depicting social change still grace the halls of Mexico’s public buildings. Much of the photography for this book required scaffolding to achieve the greatest accuracy and show Rivera’s murals in detail.

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.

This volume features numerous large-scale details of the murals, allowing their various components and subtleties to be closely examined. In addition to the murals is a vast selection of paintings, vintage photos, documents, and drawings from public and private collections around the world, many of which the whereabouts were previously unknown to scholars and whose inclusion here is thanks to the most intense research performed on Rivera’s work since his death. Texts include an illustrated biography and essays by prominent art historians offering interpretations of each mural. One could not ask for a more comprehensive study of Rivera’s oeuvre; finally his work is the subject of the sweeping retrospective it deserves.

About the Contributors

Luis-Martín Lozano is an art historian specializing in the study of different aspects of modernism in Mexican and Latin American art. He is the recipient of a Fulbright scholarship and has conducted extensive research on the work of both Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, as well as publishing widely on both artists. Lozano was formerly the director of the Museo de Arte Moderno in Mexico City, and has been a guest curator for many art institutions in the United States, Europe, Asia, Latin America, and particularly in Mexico.

Diego Rivera's grandson Juan Rafael Coronel Rivera has worked as editor of the magazines Punto Cero en Literatura, El Faro revista de literatura y arte and M'hija, together with Carlos Jaurena. He founded Kahlo-Coronel Fotogalería, Mexico's first private photo-gallery, in 1987. His collection of Mexican popular pottery is the world's most extensive, including more than 15,000 pieces from the 16th century to the present day. He has curated more than 100 exhibitions for art galleries, museums, and biennials and has written 71 publications.

Explore related artwork by Diego Rivera at the Chrysler Museum