The Complete Diego Rivera Guide: Famous Murals, Artistic Style, and Lasting Legacy
By Maya Lin-Takahashi
Rivera's high-stakes gamble in the United States unraveled in New York City. In 1932, Nelson Rockefeller commissioned Rivera to paint a massive, 1,071-square-foot fresco in the lobby of the RCA Building at Rockefeller Center. The project brief was high-minded and deliberately vague: "Man at the Crossroads Looking with Hope and High Vision to the Choosing of a New and Better Future."
Rivera took the theme literally. He painted a central workman operating machine controls, flanked by two diverging sociological realities:
- Capitalist society, plagued by police brutality, war machines, nightclub hedonism, and disease.
- Socialist society, marked by scientific advancement, athletic youth, and organized workers marching in unity.
The flashpoint occurred when Rivera added a portrait of Vladimir Lenin leading hands of multi-racial laborers. When Nelson Rockefeller saw Lenin’s likeness, he sent a formal letter asking Rivera to replace the Bolshevik leader with an anonymous face. Rivera refused, offering instead to balance Lenin’s portrait with one of Abraham Lincoln on the opposite side.
Rockefeller rejected the compromise. On May 9, 1933, building security ordered Rivera down from his scaffolding, handed him his final fee of $21,000, and covered the wall with heavy canvas. Despite street protests by artists and left-wing organizations, Rockefeller Center workmen attacked the fresco with pickaxes on February 10, 1934, chiseling it into rubble.
Rivera struck back. Using smuggled reference photographs taken by his assistant Lucienne Bloch, Rivera recreated the entire composition in Mexico City at the Palacio de Bellas Artes in 1934, retitling it Man, Controller of the Universe. For good measure, he added a portrait of John D. Rockefeller Jr. seated in a nightclub beneath a cluster of syphilis microbes.
Maya is a hardware enthusiast who tests and reviews smart home devices, smartphones, wearables, and audio gear. She focuses on practical consumer value and build quality.
