From 1931-1932, the famous Mexican muralist Diego Rivera and his wife, the artist Frida Kahlo, lived in Detroit, Michigan. During this time, Rivera worked on a mural project at the Detroit Institute of Art (DIA) that earned him public controversy.
Edsel Ford and Diego Rivera
Edsel Ford was the only son of automobile mogul Henry Ford and president of the Ford Motor Company. As head of the Detroit Arts Commission, part of the DIA Edsel had underwritten the cost of the Diego Rivera mural project; plus $20,000, the next equivalent of $300,000 in 2012 funds.
This was a bold undertaking on Ford’s part, especially since Rivera did not hide the fact that he was a member of the Communist Party in Mexico. The artist eloquently declared that his focal point would serve as a mural subject to elevate the status of the worker. The Detroit CommissionDetroit Arts is required to describe the history of Detroit murals and Detroit’s industrial development. Rivera titled the mural project “Detroit Industry.”
Although on the political left, Diego Rivera proclaimed his admiration for his father Edsel, the milestone capitalist/inventor Henry Ford. Old muralist Ford “a true poet and artist, one of the greatest in the world.”
The original inspiration to hire Diego Rivera to create the hall murals for the garden museum, however, came from Dr. W. R. Valentiner, director of the DIA.
When Diego Rivera and his wife Frida Kahlo arrived in Detroit, the labor unrest was at a fever pitch. Just a few days before their arrival, five people were shot in a bloody shooting outside Ford Motors in Rouge River.
Man of the court murals
In 1931, he first hired Diego Rivera to paint two walls of the DIA’s Garden Court. For inspiration, Rivera and the artist’s wife Frida Kahlo visited the Rouge River. For weeks they observed and photographed the assembly process for the 1932 Ford V8. The Rouge plant employed 100,000 workers. To add to the artistic inspiration, the husband and wife artists also sat at artist hangouts and private homes . Rivera was so inspired by the workers of Detroit and their industry; He asked Edsel Ford and the Arts Commission to paint all four gardens on the walls of the hall. They received.
The student painted 27 murals, all done in the classic plastering technique: paint over wet plaster. The artist weighed 316 pounds when he started in 1931. With the help of the diet he had lost 108 pounds during the plan at the end of 1933. The temperature under the glass roof of the Garden Court sometimes hit 120. Detroit summer.
Frida Kahlo’s residence in Detroit would mark the beginning of her exciting creative career. He included the industrial scenes of Detroit in his paintings.
Garden of Controversy
The Murals of the public garden court were unveiled in 1933.
Among the multi-layered murals of the Rivera project are his main sponsors, Edsel Ford and DIA head W.R. Valentiner expressed. Multiracial workers also painted continuous murals.
The project included the most controversial images of workers wearing poison gas masks. This strong leftist image prompts a strong reaction from Detroit city councilman William P. Bradley among other powerful conservative politicians. He called it a picture of the Detroit River.
Another controversial mural includes doctors and scientists posing with a baby in a mock nativity scene. This strong movement uses religious leaders from Detroit. Chief among the religious critics was Dr. Ralph Higgins, senior curate of St. Paul’s Cathedral in Detroit.
Dr. George H. Derry, president of Detroit’s Marygrove College, went further, stating that “Mr. Rivera is a perpetual disgrace to the capitalism of his employer.”
Many of the strongest critics wanted the murals to be whitewashed, or the roofs to be completely destroyed.
Detroit Arts Commission
The Detroit Arts Commission was founded by Edsel Ford and DIA head W.R. Valentiner supported Rivera’s leadership of the project. As a personal response, Ford would only release this public statement: “I admire the River Flint. I truly believe that he was trying to express the idea of the spirit of Detroit.”
Detroit Detroit Aftermath
In 1933, New York political power Nelson Rockefeller, John D. Rockefeller Jr. descendants, commissioned Diego Rivera to design a mural in the RCA building at Manhattan’s iconic Rockefeller Center. Like the DIA mural project, Rivera’s RCA building uses controversial murals, especially from patron Nelson Rockefeller. The image was very difficult for the workers of the demonstration of the May Day Parade led by the communist leader Vladimir Lenin.
Rockefeller urged Rivera to paint a generic face over Lenin’s face. Rivera refused, and the Rockefeller Center murals were ordered torn down.
In 1934, Diego Rivera and his wife Frida Kahlo returned to Mexico.
SOURCES:
“My Art, My Life”, Diego Rivera, The American Experience, PBS Online
“Diego Rivera’s Detroit Industry (1932-1933)”, Mike McKiernan, Oxford Journals
“Detroit Industry: Diego Rivera’s Murals,” Don Gonyea, April 22, 2009, NPR
“Battle of the Garden Court”, Donald Lochbiler, July 15, 1997, The Detroit News
“Detroit muses legendary artists Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo,” Louis Aguilar, April 6, 2011, The Detroit News
“Diego Rivera’s Murals at the Detroit Institute of Arts,” Photos, WSJ.com
“Diego Rivera – About the Artist”, American Masters, PBS, August 26, 2006
