Diego Riveraby George Holzman

Facts

Pics

Story

Video

Lenin

Facts

• Most well know Mexican artist of the 20th century.

• Marxist/Leninist and devout Atheist

Only 3 out of 12 people know who Diego Rivera was.

Diego and friends

Diego Rivera: The People’s Artist

 

 “Never before had a woman put such agonizing poetry on canvas as Frida did. ” This is a quote from the late painter, Diego Rivera. Even though he is the most famous and important Mexican artist of the twentieth century not many people even know of him. Miss Kahlo seems to get all the glory and not her husband, who played a huge role in her becoming successful and famous.

 

Diego was born on December 8th 1886 in Guanajuato, Guanajuato. He has work all over North America including Detroit, New York City, San Francisco and Mexico. Since a young age he started going to art school and eventually trained in Europe.  He was at first influenced by such artists as Picasso but later turned to Paul Cezanne.

 

 He was also influenced by his surroundings and what he witnessed. He lived through the Mexican Revolution which took place from 1910-1929. The key revolutionaries were Emiliano Zapata and Pancho Villa. The Russian Revolution of 1917 also made him more politically and socially aware. He became a devout Marxist/Leninist and began painting scenes of the struggling peoples of the world including his native Mexico.

 

Diego who came from a well to do family, much like that of many Marxist/Leninists including Vladimir Lenin and Ernesto “Che” Guevara. But instead of taking up arms like those previously mentioned, he took a peaceful route by taking part in demonstrations and by using his gift of painting to paint scenes of the struggling peoples of the world and the men that shaped his radical views, Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, Friedrich Engels and Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche.

 

After the death of Vladimir Lenin in 1924,  Trotsky fled from Russia to escape the pursue of Stalinists planning to kill him. Diego and Frida gave Trotsky and his wife a place to stay for a while. Frida developed a relationship with Trotsky. This infuriated Diego and Trotsky left their safe house and was eventually assassinated but a man sent by Stalin.

 

Another little known fact is that Diego was a notorious womanizer. Even though he was well over three hundred pounds and not the least bit attractive, he had a great personality and was a very charismatic figure. The women couldn’t resist Diego. He even had a brief affair with Frida’s sister which ended their marriage in a divorce. As Frida’s health deteriorated they remarried. Frida died in 1954 of an accidental or intentional overdose. Diego later noted that the happiest time in his life was when he was with Frida. Diego died at the age of 70, on November 24, 1957 in Mexico City, three years after Frida’s death.

 

If you are ever curious to see Rivera’s murals and paintings, the Museum of Modern Art has an exhibit with a lot of his work.

Diego Video Footage

QuickTime™ and a decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

QuickTime™ and a decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

QuickTime™ and a decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

Lenin: The Red Revolution

 Vladimir Lenin. Russian revolutionary, cold hearted enigmatic figure. He turned Russia upside down when the October Revolution happened in 1917, forever changing and influencing the world we know of.

 Lenin, named Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov was born on April 22, 1870 to a political official and a school teacher. As a child he was very intelligent and far surpassed his fellow classmates. At the age of 17, Lenin’s brother was put on trial and executed because of a failed assassination attempt on the Czar of Russia. This was the event that would mold Lenin

into the cold, calculating and determined individual he would become.

Lenin at first became a local lawyer and took up cases for the poorer people in the city. He  also was a founding member of the Bolsheviks, which in Russian mean the Majority, Since the age of 17 Lenin knew that the only way to

achieve a Marxist society he would have to liquidate the Czarist family and crush his opponents. Lenin became friends with another revolutionary named Leon Trotsky and they would become the two main figures of the Russian

Revolution. After a short skirmish, the Bolsheviks obtained power and Lenin became the Dictator of Russia.

 The former Czar, his wife and children were executed shortly after to make sure an uprising didn’t take place and that the Bolsheviks wouldn’t lose power. A civil war broke out between the reds (Bolsheviks) and whites(counter-

revolutionaries). The reds evened up crushing the whites even though the causalities were great.

 It wasn’t as easy as Lenin thought to create his Marxist “utopia”. Faced with poor economic choices a famine occurred which ended up killing millions of people. Some good came out of the Leninist government however,

including universal healthcare, free education, civil right to women and a state control of businesses. Lenin had the Cheka formed which was made to weed-out counter-revolutionaries, traitors and others trying to destroy the newly

formed government.

 Lenin survived two assassination attempts, the later having been shot two times including in the lung. This and his age of 53 caused his health to deteriorate and he suffered several strokes. Lenin died on April 24th 1922 at the age

of 53. Once he dies Stalin a prominent member of the party took power and eventually had Trotsky and other political opponents killed.

 Although Lenin only was in power for a little over four years, his writings and actions have influenced many people including Fidel Castro, Mao Zedong, Ernesto Guevara and Ho Chi Minh.

QuickTime™ and a decompressor

are needed to see this picture.