Covering The Coverage: Little-Known Mexican Muralist Diego Rivera Finally Gets Some Attention
Diego Rivera, a Mexican muralist of which you have never heard, is finally getting some attention from the art world. We have The New York Times to thank for letting this obscure artist emerge from beneath the dark shadows of his famous wife’s upper lip:
“It’s ironic that this artist who painted miles and miles of frescoes is not as well known as his wife, who painted almost miniatures,” said Linda Downs, an expert on Rivera’s American murals.
Rivera? Who? Oh! Haha, the painter. This wildly unknown fellow could have benefitted from some blood-spattered-fetus-and-fractured-pelvis action. As could we all, we suppose. As could we all.
Yet on the 50th anniversary of his death, [Mexico City] is in the midst of a series of exhibitions celebrating his work, a tribute that shows his wide range, including not just frescoes, but also paintings, watercolors, sketches and even magazine covers. (The Kahlo worship, though, continues unabated: A retrospective this summer at the museum of the Palacio de Bellas Artes here drew about double the number of visitors as the recent Rivera show there.)
Rivera is best known, of course, for his Mexican murals, particularly in the National Palace and the Ministry of Education. If these seem rather earnest today, it is worth remembering, as Juan Coronel Rivera, an art historian and a grandson of Rivera, points out in one exhibition catalog, that Rivera and the Mexican muralists created the first major Modern art movement on the American continent.
Fact was, of course, that Diego Rivera enjoyed quite a bit of fame in his day and no one knew or cared who Frida was until the 1980s, long after she had gone to the giant, surrealistic, vagina-dotted landscape in the sky. Sigh.
Rivera, Fridamania’s Other Half, Gets His Due [New York Times]
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- Managing Editor
Daniel Mauser
- Editor
Cindy Casares
- Associate Editor
Alex Alvarez
- Contributing Editors
Gabriel Caro - Camilla Rowan
- Video Editor
Marcelo Cunning
Well, he didn’t treat Frida as well as he could have. And he did enjoy the fame in his day. I always liked Orozco better, even though he had only one hand.
Posted by Otis | December 26, 2007
Unknown to US Americans but well known through Mexico and art history buffs. I ate at a random Houston restaraunt, across from a HEB, and their whole back wall was a mural of Diego Rivera’s Sueño de una tarde dominical en la Alameda Central. Too bad the art showing will not make it to the states or anywhere near that I can go.
Posted by latinogamer | December 26, 2007
I’m shaving my woman ‘stache in solidarity to unknown artists who are claimed by rail accidents or coyotes in border crossings.
Posted by Janie A Go-Go | December 26, 2007
when i starting reading this entry I thought you guys were making a funny! but then I realized oh yeah im in the united estates …and it’s not surprising that people haven’t heard of him.
Posted by la roncha | December 26, 2007
latinogamer - That probably wasn’t so “random” a restaurant, honestly. It was likely an Abuelo’s establishment, which is a sizable chain started in Lubbock by some Asian folks (seriously). They have that mural on some wall in every restaurant in the chain - I helped open a few during the nearly 3 years I worked at the one in Austin.
They’re freakin’ huge now. They were just starting to spread into the midwest when I left, now they’ve gone nuts. Hopefully they can find decent cooks as they keep moving further north - http://www.abuelos.com/newmap.asp
Posted by wednesdayam | December 26, 2007
Someone mentioned HEB! W00t.
And I’m pretty sure they were making a funny. Everyone in the States has seen Frieda.
Posted by Fat Elvis | December 26, 2007
The restaraunt was random, because I was only in Houston for two weeks, I helped opened the HEB Chain store, Mi Tienda. I had no freaking clue it was a chain, since I randomnly asked the hotel clerk to point me to a good mexican eatery, and she was latin or hispanic or whatever or something random. I am from California, and seen the SF City College murals for Diego Rivera, but it felt surreal to find this restaraunt sporting a mexican mural, since all the taquerias of SF have some random artist painting their own random mural.
Posted by latinogamer | December 26, 2007
@la roncha: No. You were right the first time, but you must be from Latin American where they have no irony.
Posted by La Cindy | December 26, 2007
@La Cindy..
I guess
Posted by la roncha | December 26, 2007
“obscure artist emerge from beneath the dark shadows of his famous wife’s upper lip”
More like emerge from his famous wife’s unibrow, bitches! Motherfucker was like Athena springing to life from Zeus’s head. But different.
Posted by EpiLadyRican | December 26, 2007
Please. Whose Mexican parents didn’t have this painting in their house?
Posted by Edward J. Olmos | December 27, 2007
@ Edward J. Olmos. Sorry Gallo, but that would have been too “Mexican” for my family. The only art in our house was the one that came from the calendar that my mom got from the tortilleria, that one with the all the saints and the print was of Tizoc or something.
I will add that complimenting that calendar were my brother’s posters of a red Ferrari and the 20 kinds of tits (Bee Stings, Watermelons, Tatas ad nauseum) that he got from the strip joint known as the Tex Mex Lounge. I do believe that my bro was responsible for putting a few of those Lounge girls thru middle school.
Posted by Janie A Go-Go | December 27, 2007
@ Edward J Olmos: That one and this one.
Posted by Dan | December 27, 2007