Saturday, May 2, 2015
Agrarian Leader Zapata
fresco on reinforced cement in galvanized-steel framework
238.1 x 188 cm
Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA
“An artist is above all a human being, profoundly human to the core. If the artist can’t feel everything that humanity feels, if the artist isn’t capable of loving until he forgets himself and sacrifices himself if necessary, if he won’t put down his magic brush and head the fight against the oppressor, then he isn’t a great artist.” (Diego Rivera)
Diego Maria de la Concepcion Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodriguez, known as Diego Rivera (1886-1957) was a prominent Mexican painter and the husband of Frida Kahlo (famous painter).
He was still married when he met the art student Frida Kahlo. They married in 1929 when he was 42 and she was 22. Their mutual infidelities and his violent temper led to divorce in 1939, but they remarried in 1940 in San Francisco and lived together until Frida Kahlo's death in 1954.
His large wall works in fresco helped establish the Mexican Mural Movement in Mexican art. Between 1922 and 1953, he painted murals among others in Mexico City, Chapingo, Cuernavaca, San Francisco, Detroit, and New York City. His political views were communist and his Marxist-Leninist social revolutionary philosophies prevailed in his art. He used art to create hope and provide a vision of a better world.
Posted by merryhaha at 08:41