Rivera Biography: Mexican Revolution

Back home in 1910, the tumultuous Mexican Revolution was well under way but Rivera took little notice. He was too busy preparing his first one-man art exhibit which was concocted by President Diaz for the sole purpose of propagandizing his corrupt Mexican regime. Years later, Diego would claim to have personally championed the rights of the poor suffering masses but there is no evidence to substantiate this claim or his even more incredulous claim of actually taking up arms and fighting with the heroic guerrilla, Emiliano Zapata. Diego would have a very financially successful exhibition and return to Paris to sit out the fighting, far away from his fellow countrymen.

He would later paint the great revolutionaries in his great revolutionary art. But was Diego Rivera a Revolutionary?

Never, this was one of his most gargantuan myths.

Notre Dame de Paris 1909

Breton Girl 1920

Next: Rivera the Cubist