Diego Rivera was attracted to the United States most of all by the land. Its skyscrapers were to him great testimonials to the powers of construction and works of incomparable beauty. He was enchanted by its steel bridges and concrete highways. “Your engineers are your great artists and these highways are the most beautiful things I have seen in your beautiful country,” he once told his friend Bertram Wolfe. “Out of them and the machine will issue the style of tomorrow.”(11) In 1931, when he sailed into New York harbor at dawn on a winter morning , a reporter recorded part of an interview with Rivera in this fashion:
It was seven o’clock in the morning as the ship rode up the bay . Diego Rivera studied the fog, the red sun rising over Brooklyn, the lights in the Manhattan towers, the shadows; he pointed to the tugboats , the ferries, to a gang of riveters at work on a dock; he waved his great arms and declared, “Here it is -- the might , the power, the energy, the sadness, the glory, the youthfulness of our land .” He looked at the Equitable Tower on lower Manhattan and said that the architects, whether they know it or not, were inspired in that design by the same feeling which prompted the ancient people of Yucatan in the building of their temples. (12)
In 1929, Ralph Stackpole, a San Francisco sculptor who had known Rivera in Paris, returned from Mexico greatly excited. He brought two of his pictures, one of which was a portrait of a Mexican woman holding an infant in her arms, which he gave to his friend William Gerstle, president of the San Francisco Art commission. Gerstle did not like the gift but was too embarrassed to say so. He thought the subject seemed to be a characterless Mexican woman and her infant. The woman , he felt , was heavy , coarse featured and huge-limbed. The child in her lap looked like a rather large cloth doll loosely stuffed with flour. He noted that only three colors had been used by the painter: a dismal brown , a washed-out lilac, and several shades of much faded overall blue. He thought it was a pretty poor painting, but to please his friend Stackpole, he made a place for the painting on his studio wall next to a Matisse and some other works. Much to his surprise , Gerstle could not take his eyes off the painting and after a few days his reaction to the picture changed completely. The simplicity of the construction seemed to come from a skill he had not at first suspected, The colors began to seem right . There was, he noticed , a settled, earthy quality - -the subject , style, design and mood proved to be in solid harmony. He began to feel that Rivera’s painting had more power and beauty than any of his other pictures. He began to share his friends’ enthusiasm for Rivera’s work and agreed that arrangements should be made for him to paint in San Francisco. (13) William Gerstle offered Rivera fifteen hundred dollars to paint a mural on a small wall in the California School of Fine Arts. Diego Rivera accepted the contract but four years would go by before he executed the painting. When he finally tackled the job, he thought the 120 square foot wall was too small so he choose the largest and finest wall in the building and painted his mural over 1200 square feet with out taking any more money than in his original contract.
In 1932 Nelson Rockefeller, after seeing some of Rivera’s Detroit murals , asked if he would be interested in painting a mural in the Radio corporation Arts Building in Rockefeller Center. Interestingly, Picasso and Matisse were also asked. Both turned down the invitation and Rivera himself rejected the offer saying that “ Ten years ago I would have accepted your kind invitation with pleasure. It would have helped me to start.... but since then I have worked enough and I am known enough to ask of each one who wants my work that he ask for it on my value. No ‘competition’- I am no more at that point.” Rockefeller finally persuaded Rivera to accept without competition. (14)
In March of 1933, Rivera moved into the RCA building and began to paint. Although he employed others to prepare the walls, grind his colors and make tracings of his sketches, he always did the actual painting himself. His work progressed smoothly and he received a note from Rockefeller indicating that he had heard that Rivera was making rapid progress and perhaps the mural could be completed by the first of May when the building was to open. However , another letter from Rockefeller showed his concern over Rivera including a portrait of the Russian revolutionary leader Lenin in his mural. Nelson Rockefeller told Rivera that while the portrait was beautifully painted, it might easily offend a great many people. He asked the painter to remove Lenin’s face and substitute it with some unknown man. (15)
Rivera’s assistants told him that if he removed the lead of Lenin, they would go on strike. Rivera agreed with his assistants and told Rockefeller that Lenin’s head would stay but that he would be glad to add the head of some great American leader such as Lincoln to another section of the mural. He must have guessed that his suggestion would not solve the problem and had photographs of the work taken secretly. Sure enough , Rockefeller said the mural would remain covered, hidden from sight , for an indefinite time but pledged that it would not be destroyed. But a few months later the mural was smashed to powder.
Rivera went on to paint his “Portrait of America” murals in the New Workers School in New York City. The work symbolized the heroes of American history and included such figures as Ben Franklin, Thomas Paine, Emerson and Thoreau, Walt Whitman and John Brown. It was said by Rivera’s friend, Bertram Wolfe, that there was no example- even by an American painter-- that comes anywhere near giving so complete and penetrating a portrayal of our people , our history, and our land. (16)
In December of 1933 Diego Rivera left the United States to return to Mexico. Among his major works in a country that allowed him freedom of expression--his native Mexico--were Man Controller of the Universe, in the Palace of Fine Arts, Prehispanic and Colonial Mexico , in the corridor of the National Palace and his autobiographical fresco Dream of a Sunday
Afternoon in the Alameda , in the Hotel Del Prado. The mural depicts historical scenes as well as Rivera as a boy and Posada, who greatly influenced him, standing by his side.
