José Diego María Rivera

Diego Rivera was a Mexican painter and one of the great muralists of the twentieth century. Born in Guanajuato in 1886, he trained in Europe, where he absorbed modern movements including Cubism, before returning to Mexico to help lead a bold new public art. He covered walls in vast, colorful murals telling the story of Mexico's history, its Indigenous roots, its workers, and its revolution.

A committed communist, he believed art should belong to ordinary people, not just to galleries, and his murals still fill public buildings in Mexico and the United States. His stormy marriage to the painter Frida Kahlo became almost as famous as his art. Rivera's monumental, socially charged murals made him a towering figure in Mexican culture.