Diego Rivera (1886–1957) is regarded throughout Latin America as both a folk hero and Mexico’s most important modern artist. Together with his wife Frida Kahlo, he devoted his life to art and communism. After spending the years around 1910 in Europe, where he absorbed the influence of Cubism, Rivera returned to Mexico and began work on the monumental murals that would make him internationally famous. Through these vast public works, he brought social and political messages directly to the working class and was celebrated by many as a prophetic figure. He was even invited to work in the United States, where he sparked major controversy by including Lenin in a mural commissioned for New York’s Rockefeller Center — a work that was ultimately destroyed before completion. Among Rivera’s greatest achievements is Detroit Industry (1932), a cycle of 27 frescoes housed at the Detroit Institute of Arts in Michigan.

This volume features numerous large-scale details from Rivera’s murals, allowing readers to closely examine their intricate components and visual complexity. It also includes an extensive selection of paintings, historical photographs, documents, and sketches drawn from private collections around the world — many previously unpublished and the result of decades of meticulous Rivera scholarship. Accompanied by an illustrated biography and essays from leading art historians interpreting each mural, the book stands as a richly comprehensive study of Rivera’s life and work — a long-overdue retrospective of one of the twentieth century’s defining muralists.

DETAILS • Author: Diego Rivera • Publisher: Taschen • Format: Hardcover