Diego Rivera's 125th

hannikan

http://www.google.com/webhp?hl=en

aj0915

awesome..i love his art 

hannikan

Yeah, me too. I took a class on the Mexican muralists in college. It was a fun class. I just DVR'd Frida. I've never seen it.

hersheykiss

I never heard of him until the movie Frida was made. He wasn't one we studied on the east coast in art classes. He did do some awesome stuff.

hannikan

Really? That's odd since he did stuff in the East. When you study WWI-WWII, even in history classes, you talk about him because his stuff was so political. He did a lot about industry so there is a famous one in Detroit:

This one was originally commissioned by the Rockefellers to be displayed in Rockefeller Center in NYC but because of the anti-capitalist subject, it was moved to Mexico.

 

Detail of Lenin:

 

hersheykiss

Yeah unfortunately we never studied him or Frida. And my majors in college were french and history with a concentration in Europe. My only art class was freshman year in HS and we were drawing stuff and most of the kids were into Ansel Adams. I loved John Singleton Copley as an artist.

hannikan

Oh, so an applied art class, not art history. That's quite different usually. He did do stuff in Europe, too. He lived there for awhile. He was part of the Mexican Communist Party so he did some work to commemorate the anniversary of the October Revolution in Moscow but fell out with the Russians, too. I think there has been renewed interest in him starting in the late 90's, right when I was in college. That could also explain why I learned about him in several classes.

hersheykiss

That could be why. I was in college in 1996 and out in 1998. I didn't go back until 2003 and I was in a business program.

I did have an art based curriculum in 6th grade, but that was 1990 and we didn't study him then either. That is when I fell in love with John Singleton Copley and his work.

hannikan

Well, I graduated with art history in '99, so that's not it. I went back in 2004 and focused on US history. Maybe it was more an E. Coast/W. Coast thing. Maybe there was a resurgence of interest in him more in the West. Yeah, JS Copley was one that I liked a lot when I took Early American art.

hannikan

I watched Frida yesterday and I really enjoyed it. Salma Hayek did a good job. I just find Frida fascinating. I've done some art of my own and I know some has been inspired by her. I was looking up El Balazo restaurant and noticed that one of their locations has her image in their decor: