Diego Rivera

Diego Rivera (1886-1957) was a Mexican painter and muralist who became one of the most influential artists in the Americas. Born in Guanajuato, he studied in Mexico City and Europe before returning home in the early 1920s to join the government-sponsored mural movement. His large-scale public frescoes in Mexico City, Detroit, and San Francisco depict Mexican history, indigenous culture, workers, and revolutionary ideals.

Rivera's murals at the National Palace in Mexico City and the Detroit Institute of Arts are considered masterworks of 20th-century public art. His personal life was famously turbulent: he married Frida Kahlo twice and was expelled from the Communist Party. A Rockefeller Center mural commission was destroyed in 1934 because it included a portrait of Lenin.