01 Work, The Art of War, Diego Rivera's The Uprising, 1931, with footnotes

Diego Rivera

The Uprising, c. 1931

Fresco

74 x 93 3/4" (188 x 238.1 cm)

Vicky and Marcos Micha Levy, Mexico

You see the men wearing workers’ overalls and the women wearing modern day short dresses and short hair cuts and even earrings. It’s an urban industrial scene, and it’s a workers’ demonstration. 

In the very center of the composition is a woman actively asserting herself against the forces of oppression. She is pushing back the soldier’s arm as he holds a sword out, protecting her baby, but also her family. She becomes, in this picture, an emblem for the collective force of workers asserting themselves.

The red flags in the background are a key signal of Rivera's own Communist background. He joined the Mexican Communist Party in 1922, when it was still very small. And he was even a member of its Executive Committee for a number of years, until he was expelled in 1929, in part because of his criticism of the party’s Stalinist orthodoxy. More on this painting

Diego Rivera (December 8, 1886 – November 24, 1957), was a prominent Mexican painter. His large frescoes helped establish the mural movement in Mexican and international art.

Between 1922 and 1953, Rivera painted murals in, among other places, Mexico City, Chapingo, and Cuernavaca, Mexico; and San Francisco, Detroit, and New York City, United States. In 1931, a retrospective exhibition of his works was held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York; this was before he completed his 27-mural series known as Detroit Industry Murals.

Rivera had four wives and numerous children, including at least one natural (illegitimate) daughter. His first child and only son died at the age of two. His third wife was fellow Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, with whom he had a volatile relationship that continued until her death. His fourth and final wife was his agent.

Due to his importance in the country's art history, the government of Mexico declared Rivera's works as monumentos históricos. As of 2018, Rivera holds the record for highest price at auction for a work by a Latin American artist. The 1931 painting The Rivals, part of the record-setting Collection of Peggy Rockefeller and David Rockefeller, sold for US$9.76 million. More on Diego Rivera

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