DDDDIIIIEEEEGGGGOOOO RRRRIIIIVVVVEEEERRRRAAAA GGeerrrryy SSoouutteerr Author: Gerry Souter Layout: Baseline Co. Ltd. 127-129A Nguyen Hue Blvd Fiditourist, 3rdfloor District 1, Ho Chi Minh City Vietnam © Confidential Concepts, worldwide, USA © Parkstone Press International, New York, USA © Victor Arnautoff © Georges Braque, Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, USA/ ADAGP, Paris © José Clemente Orozco, Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, USA/ SOMAAP, México © Estate of Pablo Picasso/ Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, USA © Banco de México Diego Rivera & Frida Kahlo Museums Trust. Av. Cinco de Mayo n°2, Col. Centro, Del. Cuauhtémoc 06059, México, D.F. © David Alfaro Siqueiros, Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, USA/ SOMAAP, México All rights reserved No part of this publication may be reproduced or adapted without the permission of the copyright holder, throughout the world. Unless otherwise specified, copyright on the works reproduced lies with the respective photographers. Despite intensive research, it has not always been possible to establish copyright ownership. Where this is the case, we would appreciate notification. ISBN: 978-1-78042-872-7 Gerry Souter Diego Rivera His Art and His Passions 4 Contents Foreword 7 From Training to Mastership 11 His New Exile to Europe or His Artistic Quest 63 Between Painting and Politics 99 A Communist Cheered by Americans 169 The Last Years or the Return to the Country 223 Index 254 Foreword I was aware of Diego Rivera, the Mexican muralist, long before I encountered the many other “Diego Riveras” that roamed the world between the beginning of the twentieth century and the late 1950s. As a photojournalist and graduate of the Chicago Art Institute, I took advantage of travel assignments to visit great works of art whenever possible. In Paris there are the treasures of the Louvre and the Centre Pompidou. In Mexico, there is Diego Rivera – everywhere. At home, I have the advantage of being only five hours by car from the Detroit Institute of Arts and the incredible murals Rivera created for this American industrial centre. While his easel paintings and drawings constitute a large body of both his early and late work, his unique murals explode off walls in virtuoso performances of mind-staggering organisation. On those walls the man, his legend and myths, his technical talent, his intense story-telling focus and self-indulgent ideological convictions all come together. As I researched my book Frida Kahlo – Beneath the Mirror, I found many photographs of Diego, first the smiling successful artist with his petite bride, and then as a tired old man following Frida’s coffin to the crematorium. Though their union was compelling, there was no way I could make my mind accept its consummation, both physical and intellectual, nor could I understand what drew beautiful women and powerful men to what appeared to be a shambling caricature. Revisiting his work and standing in front of it as the phantasmagoria of his imagination glowed from the walls, his appeal as a larger-than-life character and creator quickly replaced one’s first impression of a placid man. Large, damp, soft-boiled lunarian eyes set in a moon face above a mouth designed for self- gratification peer expectantly from beneath heavy lids to create a frog-like portrait that sits upon a flesh-padded, tear-drop shaped body. But this large man who filled doorways and 1. Diego Rivera, caused chairs to groan ominously had small, childlike hands. He appeared soft and lazy, but his The Making of a Fresco, Showing the endurance often stretched to eighteen hours a day on a scaffold with brush in hand in front of Building of a City,1931. his mural walls. His personal life was a chaos of politics, seductions, parties, travel, marriages Fresco, 568 x 991 cm. and creating his own myth, but his work at the wall was, of necessity, precisely choreographed San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco. to co-ordinate his creative execution with the time-driven demands of plaster fresco. In his memoir Rivera, the struggling young artist, praised Picasso to the skies for liberating 2. Diego Rivera, painters from the grip of stagnation. To his friends he accused Picasso of stealing elements of Self-Portrait,1916. Cubist technique from him and seethed as Picasso advanced while he remained bogged down Oil on canvas, 82 x 61 cm. in Paris still without a style of his own. He was a life-long believer in the ideal of Communism Museo Dolores Olmedo, Mexico City. 7 DIEGO RIVERA – HIS ART AND HIS PASSIONS and mostly in denial concerning its ruthless reality. Who could possibly embrace the strict ideology of Communism and still work for rich capitalists? Today, we need only look at China and the entrepreneurial Eastern European states following the dissolution of the Soviet Union. During the volatile twenties, thirties and forties Rivera’s political insights operated on the level at which most contemporaries viewed him – those of a great big child. He gathered friends wherever he went – Mexico, Spain, France, Italy, Germany, Russia and the United States – yet jealousy of his successes and the divisive political insinuations he brushed into his art created bitter enemies and left a shambles in his wake. For years he habitually carried a large-calibre Colt revolver ostensibly to fight off attempts on his life. Diego Rivera played many roles, some better than others, but deep inside – and more than 3. Frida Kahlo, a third of his life had passed before he realised this truth was Mexico, the language of his Xochítl, Flower of Life,1938. thoughts, the blood in his veins, the azure sky above his resting place. Finally, when all the Oil on metal, 18 x 9.5 cm. Sturm und Drang of a life lived at the gallop settled and he had achieved his master’s gift of Private collection. technique and fully embraced his creative goals, there was Mexico, her history and her stories. Those stories and the life of Diego Rivera mingle as a swift-flowing river gathers the earth into 4. Frida Kahlo, its stream. Self-Portrait,c. 1938. Oil on metal, 12 x 7 cm. Gerry Souter Private collection, Paris. Arlington Heights, Illinois 8 9 10