The oddest couple An Irishwomans Diary on Diego Rivera and Albert Bender
about 5 hours ago
Elgy Gillespie
Frida Kahlo And Diego Rivera
Seventy-seven years ago, Mexican muralist Diego Rivera climbed a ladder on San Francisco’s Treasure Island. With a paintbrush in one hand and a pistol in each pocket, he was hoping for a thousand dollars a month to paint his epic Pan American Unity for the World’s Fair. At the same time he was fleeing Mexico’s federales on suspicion of murdering his former friend Leon Trotsky. A hundred thousand onlookers gawked. Polite and unassuming, he climbed down to chat, endearing himself and blowing his deadline by three months.
Subtitled The Marriage Between North and South America, all 1800sq ft of his mural expressed his beliefs. Fascinating and vast, it teems with history from Montezuma to Ford, and features Diego’s wife Frida Kahlo and Chaplin acting as Hitler.
“My mural will picture the fusion between the Latin American lands deeply rooted in the soil, and high mechanical developments of the United States.”
Alas, it hangs where few see it, at the community college where I teach. Good news: City College is planning a $200 million state-of-the-art theatre, and after decades of neglect the mural will take pride of place.
More:
http://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/the-oddest-couple-an-irishwoman-s-diary-on-diego-rivera-and-albert-bender-1.3081346
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Pan American Unity
Diego Rivera, as a young man.
