Mesmerized for days outside Posada´s shop, watching as the master gave form to his figures, the boy Diego Rivera was invited in by the artist himself, to see how he worked. Since that moment, Rivera recognized Posada as one of his greatest teachers. In this book, an homage to the mexican engraver, we present a text in which Rivera the muralist speaks passionately about...
Mesmerized for days outside Posada´s shop, watching as the master gave form to his figures, the boy Diego Rivera was invited in by the artist himself, to see how he worked. Since that moment, Rivera recognized Posada as one of his greatest teachers.
In this book, an homage to the mexican engraver, we present a text in which Rivera the muralist speaks passionately about influence that Posada the lithographer and caricaturist had on his work: “Surely no bourgeoisie has been as unlucky as Mexico, to have a rapporteour who meted out justice upon their fashions, their actions, their comings and goings, like the brilliant and incomparable José Guadalupe Posada”, he writes.
Doctorate in Law and a writer and active participant in Mexican political life, is Diego Rivera´s daughter.
Considered one of the foremost Mexican muralists, Diego Rivera studied for 15 years in Europe, primarily in Spain, France and Italy, where he cultivated an interest for avant-garde art. Identifying with the revolutionary ideals of his homeland, Rivera returned from Europe in 1922, the year the Mexican revolution seemed to have taken firm root.
Together with David Alfaro Siqueiros, he dedicated himself to a detailed study of Mayan and Aztec art, which were to significantly influence his later work. In collaboration with other renowned artists of the time (like Siqueiros and José Clemente Orozco) he founded the painters’ union, which was the starting point for the Mexican muralist movement, characterized by its deep indigenista roots.
In the 1920s, the Mexican government commissioned major mural compositions that today be seen at Palacio de Cortés in Cuernavaca, Morelos, at the Palacio Nacional and Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City, and the National Agricultural School at Chapingo, Mexico State. In these works, Rivera developed a national style that reflected the history of the Mexican people, from pre-Colombian times to the revolution. His paintings, profoundly realistic and full of the color, appealed to the people.
To speak of Diego Rivera is to refer to a politically committed artist who expressed his social commitment in his own murals. In the 1930s he traveled to the United States where he mounted a number of exhibits and painted major murals in San Francisco, Detroit—at the Art Institute of Detroit in 1932—and New York—at Rockefeller Center in 1933, though this last work was ultimately demolished because of its socialist content. From 1936 to 1940, Rivera dedicated himself to painting landscapes and portraits.
Another of Rivera’s great legacies is his outstanding collection of pre-Hispanic sculpture, today on display at his great home-museum in Mexico City, called Anahuacalli.