Rivera is particularly known for his murals, the striking colors of his frescoes, and his bold, simple, and monumental style, which has led to a resurgence of fresco art in the USA and Latin America.
Born in Guanajuato, Mexico, in 1886, Diego started drawing when he was just three years old. His family allowed this little boy to paint on a cloth they stretched against the wall. The artist, who started his art education at the Academia de San Carlos former Escuela Nacional de Bellas (ENBA - National School of Fine Arts), later won a scholarship and went to Europe in 1907, where he would spend 14 years. While there, he constantly followed and painted the people of his country, the Mexican Revolution, which lasted more than 10 years and many Mexicans died.
Diego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez, known as Diego Rivera (December 8, 1886 – November 24, 1957), was a prominent Mexican painter. His large frescoes helped establish the mural movement in Mexican and international art.
He married his first wife, Russian artist Beloff when he went to Russia, but later Rivera returned to Mexico and they separated.
Rivera was an active member of the Mexican Communist Party.
Rivera is particularly known for his murals, the striking colors of his frescoes, and his bold, simple, and monumental style, which has led to a resurgence of fresco art in the USA and Latin America. A fresco is a wall painting made using the method of painting on fresh plaster with mineral paints dissolved in lime water. The fresco, which is the most suitable technique for wall painting with its monumental effect, durability, and matte surface, has been used to decorate the walls for centuries. There are 2 types: real fresco and dry fresco.
Without Frida Kahlo, Rivera would be incomplete
Frida was studying at the National Preparatory School when she first saw him. Known for his fondness for women, Rivera had come to school to paint a mural. Frida, on the other hand, had watched this giant man brush for three hours and followed him. Then she told her friends, “I will have a child with Rivera.” Although Frida could not have children, she married Diego Rivera, who was undoubtedly one of the most famous painters of the 20th century and is known as Mexican Michelangelo, in 1929. “I fell in love with Diego, but my family didn't like it at all, because Diego was a communist and our people compared him to a very, very fat Brueghel. They said it was like the marriage of an elephant and a white dove. After all, we got married on August 21, 1929.
My father told Diego, “Remember that my daughter is sick and will have health problems throughout her life. She is smart but not beautiful. Don't forget that either. Despite everything, if you want to marry her, I give consent." No one attended their wedding except Kahlo's father.
When they got married, Frida Kahlo was 22 and her husband was 43. This is the marriage of two creative, two strikings, two passionate people, the elephant, and the pigeon, each in their own way.
They were in love with each other, but theirs was a turbulent love. It is said that Diego's being with Frida's sister caused a great wound in their relationship. It is also written in the sources that Frida was with different women and men, and moreover, with Trotsky, who was exiled in Mexico and hosted in their home. They get divorced for a while, but the separation cannot end their love, they remarry.
Elena Poniatovska said of Diego, “I picture you with that giant neck, with your belly that always goes one inch in front of you, your dirty shoes, your old and crooked hat, and your rumpled trousers, and I don't think anyone can carry such ugly things with such dignity.” She was right.
Although Rivera was shaken by Kahlo's death in 1954, he married his agent for the third time within a few months.
He died of heart failure in November 1957.