I thought this was interesting as we are blessed to have three of Diego River's murals here in San Francisco. Please forgive the uneven cutting and pasting.
- The Making of a Fresco Showing the Building of a City at the San FDancisco Art Institute
The Making of a Fresco Showing the Building of a City by legendary muralist Diego Rivera occupies a central wall in the Diego Rivera Gallery—a contemporary exhibition space for new projects by SFAI artists.
The mural was commissioned by SFAI President William Gerstle (1930–1931), and was completed by Rivera in the course of one month, from May 1–May 31, 1931. It is signed and dated in the lower righthand corner, under the drafting table.
The work powerfully conflates art and labor—the sheer “work” of creative practice with the individuals who surround, support, and fund a work of art. The mural has been noted as a provocative expression of Rivera’s politics, and an example of the elevated status the artist attributed to the industrial worker.
2.At SF MOMA Diego Rivera's America - July 16, 2022–January 3, 2023
The most in-depth examination of the artist’s work in over two decades, Diego Rivera’s America brings together more than 150 of Rivera’s paintings, frescoes, and drawings—as well as three galleries devoted to large-scale film projections of highly influential murals he created in Mexico and the United States. Rather than surveying his entire career, the exhibition focuses on Rivera’s work from the 1920s to the mid-1940s, when he was conceiving a new vision for North America informed by his travels in Mexico and the U.S.
3) Rivera’s Famed and Controversial Fresco
American artist Ralph Stackpole (1895–1973)—who created the monumental sculptures that flank the entrance of the adjacent San Francisco Stock Exchange—was responsible for commissioning artists for the interior of The City Club. His choice of Mexican artist Diego Rivera (1886–1957) was controversial at the time. Local newspapers referred to the incongruity of selecting a Hispanic artist of Rivera’s leftward political leanings to create a mural in “the citadel of capitalism.” Nonetheless, the renowned artist arrived in 1931 and completed what became the centerpiece and the symbol of The City Club.
Rivera created his first U.S. fresco on the wall and the ceiling of the grand stairwell of The City Club. The central figure represents Calafia, the Spirit of California, for whom the state is named. Her right hand mines the Earth for its hidden treasure while her left hand holds the treasures that grow aboveground.
Tennis professional and Olympic gold medalist Helen Wills Moody (1905–1998), a friend of Stackpole’s, posed as Calafia. The fresco also features portraits of carpenter James Marshall, whose discovery of gold at Sutter’s Mill started the California Gold Rush, and famed horticulturist Luther Burbank. Other figures represent an engineer, a merchant and a farmer panning for gold. Youth and its dreams are represented by a boy holding an airplane. (The model was Stackpole’s son Peter, now an award-winning photographer.) The oil industry and shipping are illustrated above Calafia’s shoulders.
The large figure on the ceiling is positioned diagonally, reflecting the diagonal line created by the stair rail. Flanked by the sun and billowy clouds, the image depicts electrical achievement.
Sheryl Losser
November 24, 2022
Mexico's muralism movement, considered to be founded by artists José Clemente Orozco, David Alfaro Siquieros and Diego Rivera, pictured here, took flight after they were recruited to paint murals by Mexico's post-revolutionary government. Hermanos Mayo
In 1920, close to the end of the Mexican Revolution, General Álvaro Obregón made a move that would have a significant impact on Mexico’s political history but also its cultural history — a move that changed art indelibly in Mexico, as well in the world.
In that year, Obregón overthrew President Venustiano Carranza, was elected president himself and then set about fomenting a national artistic and cultural shift in Mexico, the remnants which still can be found today.
Obregón’s coup was the culmination of a decade of civil war that had seen constant military battles, ever-changing factions and armies and a revolving door of leaders since 1910.
Upon being officially elected president in December 1920, Obregón tasked his minister of education José Vasconcelos with increasing literacy and forging what was seen as a much-needed sense of national and cultural unity.
about their history and instill national pride. Creative CommonsVasconcelos’s idea was to portray the revolution’s history in public spaces, using a visual language that would teach Mexicans about the revolution and instill national pride in their indigenous heritage.
Mexico’s Education Minister José Vasconcelos commissioned many of Mexico’s artists to paint murals to educate Mexicans about their history and instill national pride.
During Obregón’s presidency, Vasconcelos mobilized creatives of all types — artists, musicians, singers, writers — to help forge this new identity, one in which Mexico’s indigenous past would be glorified and its colonial legacy condemned.
Three of the most famous of those creatives, muralists Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiros — the founders of the Mexican Muralist Movement and known as “Los Tres Grandes” (The Big Three) — would forever impact Mexico’s art, as well as artists worldwide.
https://mexiconewsdaily.com/mexicolife/mexicos-muralism-movement-changed-mexico-then-the-world/
Greg