We are excited to provide a low-cost version of one of the more interesting autobiographies of the 20th century. No only was Diego Rivera one of the most productive artists of the period, but the controversies of his life may inspire students to dig further into the ideologies of the period. His politics provide a lot of material to agree or disagree with.

We have included all the illustrations Rivera used in the print version of the book, and moved the illustrations to the beginning of the ebook. Of course, the web makes much more spectacular art from Rivera easily available to readers. If you in a classroom, previewing this art with students may encourage them to complete this book. This is a rather obvious suggestion, of course. A couple of writing assignments linked to the book may also encourage completion. Here are a few of the links we have found with images of Rivera’s murals and other art:

https://www.diegorivera.org/diego-rivera-paintings.jsp

https://www.mmoca.org/mmocacollects/artists/diego-rivera

https://www.gettyimages.com/photos/diego-rivera?mediatype=photography&page=3&phrase=diego%20rivera&sort=mostpopular

https://www.moma.org/artists/4942

Dedication

IN GRATITUDE to DIEGO

whose dynamic companionship was an illumination in my youth;

and to ALFRED

my patient, dearly beloved husband, who helped to sustain and enrich its radiance

— G. M.

Foreword

Genetically, this book began as a newspaper interview which Rivera granted me in the spring of 1944. But it did not begin to assume theproportions of a book—even in my mind—until the following year,when we first discussed my writing it. I spent six months with Rivera in 1945, working hard at what he would call “the preliminarysketch.” In the years that followed, usually summers, I would godown to Mexico for a month or two to review and supplement mynotes and to find out what “news” had occurred since my previousvisit. Diego Rivera’s was an active and many-sided personality: hismind was quick, his imagination staggering; so there was alwaysmuch to be added. The interviews which began in 1944 ended in1957 because my notes, now bulking over two thousand pages, suggested that I might now have all I needed.

From the outset, Rivera framed much of his dialogue in the form of short personal narratives, and these narratives compose the skeleton as well as much of the meat of this book. But a good deal of histalk, too, consisted of anecdotes, unguarded remarks, and opinionson art, people, and politics, which I later interpolated in theirproper places in the story.

Fortunately for me, Rivera seemed to be flattered by the continual attentions of a young American woman. I literally walked in his shadow, and he let me go with him everywhere as he spun his tales.Most of our dictating sessions took place while Rivera was engagedin painting, at his studio. But conversations ran over into mealtimes, and I made notes in his car en route to lectures or parties, inhis home, and on walks. I met his wives, his daughters, his friends—many of the people who appear in this book.

In collating my notes, I found that much that Rivera had said orally could stand up as writing, or could not be changed withoutsome loss, call it the flavor of his personality. Of course, nobody’sdialogue is consistently good, but wherever I pared phrases, unwound sentences, or lopped off tautologies and digressions, I endeavored to remain faithful to Rivera’s style. Essentially, this is Rivera’s own story, told in his words. As such, it may not alwayscoincide with what other people might call “the facts.” Élie Faurewas one of the first to recognize a dominant quality of the artist’smind: “Mythologer, I said to myself, perhaps even mythomaniac!”

Rivera, who was afterwards, in his work, to transform the history of Mexico into one of the great myths of our century, could not, inrecalling his own life to me, suppress his colossal fancy. He had already converted certain events, particularly of his early years, intolegends. Both Bertram D. Wolfe and Ernestine Evans, who wrotebooks about him, grappled with this problem. And the reader willreact to it according to his purposes as he encounters it here. Mytask, however, was to be neither judge nor censor. An autobiography must encompass the whole man: what he has made of the facts,as well as the facts themselves.

In addition to recording and organizing Rivera’s dictation, and making grammatical and literary changes in the text, I added—always with his approval—material from previously published books,articles, and interviews to fill in such gaps as inevitably appeared.For this reason, however, no claim can be laid to completeness ordefinitiveness. There were aspects of his life which Rivera did notcare to recall, and as his amanuensis, I could only respect his reticence.

The artist’s account of his relations with Leon Trotsky, for instance, all but conceals a genuine attraction he felt toward Trotsky’s Fourth International. But when I met Rivera, in 1944, he was seeking readmittance into the Communist Party. For this reason, also,his description of his journey to Russia in 1927 omits much that hehad earlier confided to his biographer, Bertram D. Wolfe, particularly of his skirmishes with Soviet bureaucrats, artists, and art theorists.

But a man’s life is his own, and his summation of it is his own, too. As I go over this book for the last time in manuscript, I think that itis one of the frankest confessions I have ever read. If Rivera nowspares the Soviets, he does not spare himself; he certainly does notspare his enemies. And the breadth of his sympathies, the vitalityand love for life which runs through his prose as it does through hispaintings—who can allow these qualities to a mere factional man?

Essentially, then, this is Rivera’s apologia: a self-portrait of a complex and controversial personality, and a key to the work of perhaps the greatest artist the Americas have yet produced.

As I was preparing the final pages of manuscript, I received the news that Diego Rivera had died on November 25, 1957, in hishome in San Ángel.

In contrast with so much of his life, marked by the furor of partisan controversy, his death came peacefully.

Up until several weeks before the end, Rivera had been at work, painting with the vigor which had characterized his work for morethan half a century. An attack of phlebitis paralyzed his right armand he was put to bed. A heart specialist, a friend of the family,observed a steady deterioration in his condition.

At 11:30 on the night of November 25th, he rang the bell beside his adjustable hospital-type bed.

His wife, Emma Hurtado, came into the room. “Shall I raise the bed?” she asked.

He replied, “On the contrary, please lower it.”

These were his last words.

Dressed in a blue suit and tie and a red shirt, and sheathed in a casket of brown steel, the remains of Diego Rivera were loweredinto the earth of the Rotunda of Mexico’s Illustrious Sons, DoloresCemetery. In the same hallowed ground lie the bones of BenitoJuárez, Mexico’s greatest hero.

Illustrations

My archeological museum, "a composite of Aztec, Mayand and 'Rivera Traditional' styles."

With my assistants in the Hospital de la Reza, (left to right) Manuel Martínez, Melquiddes Ejido, Oscaldo Barra, and Marco Antionio Borregía.

My four wives

A self-portrait, painted for Sigmund Firestone.

Frida Kahlo and I, outside our home in Coycacán.

Photo of D. Rivera with David Alfaro Siqueiros and Emma Hurtado in Moscow

A visit from David Alfaro Siqueiros in Moscow. At my side is my wife Emma.

Rivera in photo of house in Guanajuato where he was born

This photograph was taken in December, 1956, on the occasion of the unveiling of a plaque outside the house in Guanajuato where I was born.

Contempary newspaper photos covering the Rockefeller Center fracas. At left is a portrait of Lenin on which opposition to my mural was focused. At right, I am seated with my attorney, Philip Wittenber.

A portrait of Lenin on which opposition to Rockefeller Center mural was focused

The reconstructed "Rockefeller mural" in the Palace of Fine Arts, Mexico City.

Mural depicting the history of medicine in Mexico

Mural in the Hospital de la Raza, depicting the history of medicine in Mexico.

"Water, Origin of Life." I am standing in the center of the Lerma reservoir, on the inner walls of which I executed this unique underwater mural.

"Sunday Dream," an allegory of my life and the history of Alameda Park.

Battle scene in the Cortes Palace mural, Cuernavaca.

Outdoor mural of the Teatro de los Insurgentes. Mexican history from pre-colonial time to the present, as reflected in scenes from Mexican plays.

A section of my mural in the National Palace, depicting the cultivation of corn.

Portrait of Edsel Ford, my benefactor in Detroit.

A satirical portrait of my Parsian period.

My peace mural. Mexican workers collect signatures for peace petitions, while in the background, Stalin and Mao offer Uncle Sam, John Bull and Belle Mariano the choice of peace or destructive war.

Research paper

My Art, My Life, An Autobiography

by Diego Rivera with Gladys March Washington D.C.

Reading Level

Copyright

Publisher’s Note

Dedication

Foreword

Illustrations

by Diego Rivera with Gladys March

Washington D.C.