[The is the concluding half of my article on Diego
Rivera, the renowned Mexican muralist, and his wife, the artist Frida Kahlo,
inspired by the opening last month of Diego
Rivera and Frida Kahlo in Detroit at the
Detroit Institute of Arts. Part one
covered the lives and careers of the two famous artists; in part two, I will
describe the murals Rivera was commissioned to create on the walls of DIA in
1932 and ’33. (I recommend going back
first and reading part one if you haven’t already as it sets the scene for the
presentation of the murals.)]
Not strictly part of the DIA exhibit, Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo in Detroit—because they are an
integral part of the building itself and, thus, a site-specific aspect of the
institute—but just down the hall from it are the 27 Detroit Industry murals in the building’s interior Garden Court, a
fulfillment of the DIA architect’s original plan for the space, which was
renamed the Rivera Court. Rivera was
commissioned by William R. Valentiner, the director of the Detroit Institute of
Arts, to depict the manufacturing might of a city particularly devastated
by the Great Depression. The original
commission was for two murals, but the Mexican muralist was so drawn to the machinery
of industrial America which he featured prominently in many of his murals as a
promise of a wondrous future, that he pressed his sponsors to let him paint all
four walls of the Garden Court. (At the
same time, Kahlo hated Detroit, its food, and its weather. As much as she had disliked New York, she
traveled back there as often as she could during her yearlong sojourn just to
escape Detroit!) Valentiner and Ford
agreed and soon Rivera was at work on an expanded plan stressing the
relationship between man and machine and the continuous development of life. Together and individually, through symbols,
figures both Detroiters and visitors would readily recognize, and activities
almost anyone who lived in or near the Motor City would immediately understand,
the murals tell a narrative—Rivera’s art was one of story-telling (while
Kahlo’s was one of emotional impact)—of Detroit’s (and, by extension, the
United States’) manufacturing might and prowess. The final work covers more than 43,000 square
feet.
The frescoes illustrate not just the automobile industry,
but also the medical and chemical industries in the city, as well as the pharmaceutical
manufacturing, represented by Parke-Davis and Company (now called Pfizer, Inc.).
Nevertheless, a major sponsor of the
project was Ford Motor Company president Edsel B. Ford, the 38-year-old
son of founder Henry Ford. (Ford paid
Rivera’s entire fee of $21,000, the equivalent in 2015 of $338,000.) Rivera’s murals celebrated America’s
industrial strength and the riches of its land, but did not hesitate to
criticize what he saw as social and political injustices (which is what got him
in such trouble in New York with the Rockefellers). Industrial technology is portrayed as both
constructive and destructive, and the relationships between North and South
America, management and labor, and the cosmic and technological are also
explored for both good and ill.
Rivera researched, designed, and painted the murals
from April 1932 though March 1933, the depth of the Depression, starting with
sketches of the panels and then painting the frescoes which are considered the most
outstanding examples of Mexican mural art in the U.S. and which the artist believed
were the pinnacle of his life’s work. From
April to July, Rivera prepared charcoal drawings, called “cartoons,” based on sketches,
photographs, and even film footage he and Kahlo shot at Ford’s River Rouge
Plant in Dearborn and the Parke-Davis factory in Detroit, then the largest in
the world. Rivera and Kahlo spent months
sketching and photographing in one factory after another all across the Detroit
area, visiting scores of locations for his research. Rivera completed dozens of drawings as
preliminary studies so he could narrow down the pictures he wanted to
show.
Rivera’s Detroit Industry depicts manufacturing
and technology as the city’s native culture and, good Marxist that he was,
glorifies its labor force. Believing that art should not be hidden away
in private homes and elite galleries but installed in public buildings open to
everyone, Rivera found his perfect medium in the mural. (Rivera even devised “portable murals”—freestanding
murals on cement with steel backing—to make the frescoes accessible to all.) After he executed commissions at the
California School of Fine Arts (now the San Francisco Art Institute) and
the Pacific Stock Exchange in
1931, the muralist’s monumental Detroit
Industry project influenced Pres. Franklin Roosevelt to use murals to
promote his New Deal, which gave birth to the Federal Art Project of the Works
Progress Administration, a program of hiring out-of-work artists to create
works in public buildings across the U.S.
The murals, which Rivera began painting in July 1932,
completing the whole cycle in a remarkable eight months, were painted in the Italian
Renaissance fresco technique, applying water-based tempera to damp
plaster. This process takes dozens of
steps for each section, working only on a portion of a panel that can be
completed in a single day, to maintain the stability of the mural. The artist worked daily in 18-hour shifts,
employing assistants (for whom Rivera had to pay out of his fee; the museum
bought the supplies). The assistants
prepared the walls for the frescoes, but Rivera did all the painting himself. The work was so arduous that Rivera, who
usually weighed about 300 pounds (on a 6′1″ frame), lost 100 pounds during the
eight months of painting. Part of the
laborious process is the transfer of the cartoons to the walls by tracing them
into the wet plaster before the pigment is applied. (Eight of Rivera’s original cartoons are on
display in the Diego Rivera and Frida
Kahlo in Detroit, lost in DIA storage since the 1980s and not seen by the
public in 30 years.)
Rivera Court
A large, arched opening leads from the Great Hall into the
Rivera Court (formerly known as the Garden Court). On the opposite (north) end, a loggia leads to
the auditorium. The court’s walls are
segmented by renaissance molding and columns within which Rivera painted the
twenty-seven panels that make up the Detroit
Industry mural series. The court’s
expansive skylight, marble floors, and the murals themselves all combine to
create an elaborate and opulent setting. Many, both viewers and critics, local and
visitor, have characterized Detroit
Industry, designated a National Historic Landmark in 2014, as the
American Sistine Chapel. In any case,
there is nothing like the Detroit
Industry murals anywhere else in the U.S.; they are unique. (For images of the murals go to the Detroit
Institute of Art website: www.dia.org/art/rivera-court.aspx.)
EAST WALL
Thematically, Diego Rivera’s Detroit Industry fresco cycle begins on the east wall, the
direction of the rising sun which symbolizes beginning and renewal, where the
origins of human life, raw materials, and technology are represented. In the center panel, an infant is cradled in
the womb-like bulb of a plant whose vein-like roots extend into the soil,
where, in the lower corners, two steel plowshares appear. (Some reports assert that Rivera had originally
planned to use a plant bulb in this image but changed his design after his wife
lost a baby.) The fetus represents the
beginnings of life, but also indicates humanity’s dependence on the bounty of
the earth.
Plowshares are used to plow under weeds and debris from the
previous crop to replenish the soil with nutrients. They symbolize the first form of
technology—agriculture—and relate in substance and form to the automotive
technology represented on the north and south walls. Bracketing the main panel are two seated
female nudes representing fertility and the European and indigenous populations
of North (the figure with blond hair) and South America (black hair). The nudes hold wheat and apples—produce grown
in Michigan and the U.S. Below these
figures are two still-life panels representing the fruits and vegetables indigenous
to Michigan.
WEST WALL
The east wall theme of the development of technology
continues on the west wall, the direction of sunsets and endings, where the
technologies of air (the aviation industry), water (shipping and speedboats),
and energy (the interior of Power House #1) are represented. The symbolic significance of the west wall is
made explicit in the depiction of dualities in technology, nature, and humanity
and in the relationship between labor and management. Rivera specifically shows the constructive and
destructive uses of aviation; the existence in nature of species who eat down
the food chain as well as those who prey on their own kind, the coexistence of
life and death; the interdependence of North and South America; and the
interdependence of management and labor. This wall combines the religious symbolism of
Christian theology (the Last Judgment) with the ancient Indian belief in the
coexistence and interdependence of life and death. The judgment here is related to humanity’s
uses of technology.
Upper Tier: Aviation
The airplanes on the left of the fresco are passenger
planes, while airplanes on the right are fighter planes adapted from the
original designs for passenger planes. (Ford
made both war planes and civilian aircraft; the passenger plane is a Ford
Tri-Motor, manufactured between 1925 and 1933.)
Figures in gas masks stand next to the fighter planes, and welders stand
next to the passenger planes. Rivera
adjusted the perspective of the airplanes and a hangar in the fresco to the
vantage point of the viewer standing on the floor of the court. Not only are the architectural divisions of
the upper tier disregarded to extend the airplanes into the side panels, but
the perspective creates the illusion of a window opening out on the hangar and
airfield. Below the passenger planes is
a peaceful dove feeding on a lower species. Below the war planes is a rapacious hawk
feeding on its own species.
Middle Tier: Interdependence of North and South
While the Aviation
panels give the illusion of windows looking out of the court onto the scene,
Rivera created the opposite illusion, that of a sculpted niche, below the
central window. Here he painted a
compass rose in monochrome gray to suggest that it is carved in stone (directly
above the middle tier). The compass
points to the northeast and southwest simultaneously. Most likely the compass introduces the theme
of the interdependence of North and South America. On the right side of the panel is a rubber
tree plantation where four men are shown collecting sap to make latex. In 1927, Ford had established Fordlandia, a
rubber plantation in Brazil, to produce latex for automobile tire production at
the Rouge. Rivera hoped for stronger
relations between South and North America through investments and trade, and he
spoke of this panel as a representation of the interconnectedness of the
industrial north and agrarian south.
Two Great Lakes freighters (based on Ford Motor Company
ships that carried raw materials from the northern Great Lakes to the Rouge)
pass, while speed boats and fish glide in front of them. With the industrial port on the left and the
rubber tree plantation on the right, the water represents the symbolic
confluence of the Detroit and Amazon rivers and represents the interdependence
of the Americas. The industrial port is
based on the actual boat slip at the Rouge. A pipe-fitter and man working a chain pulley
appear in front of a bridge crane on railroad tracks used to unload freighters.
The skyline of the city of Detroit is
represented in the left background.
The coexistence of life and death is graphically presented
above the center of the shipping panel, where a half-face and half-skull are
painted on either side of a five-pointed star. This dualism is a spiritual concept that goes
back to the most ancient beliefs in Mexico. The half-face is a portrait of George
Washington, whom Rivera referred to as America’s first revolutionary.
Lower Tier: Steam and Electricity
This is the section that plays out Rivera’s theme of “man
and machine.” Vertical panels on each
side of the west entrance to the court introduce the theme of the automobile
industry through representation of Power House #1. The Power House was the principal power
generation and distribution facility at the Rouge. The manager/engineer in the electricity panel
is a composite portrait of Henry Ford and Thomas Edison, who were close friends
throughout their adult lives. The
worker/mechanic is associated with the raw energy of steam. Rivera, in a small joke, put a red star on
the worker’s glove, which would indicate that he’s a communist except for the
fact that one of Detroit’s businesses was a leather-goods company called the
Red Star Glove Company. The manager
engineer is associated with the transformed power of electricity. Here, Rivera graphically demonstrates the
dichotomy of workers and capitalists in the steam and electricity panels of the
west wall. He associates each with
different kinds of power but also shows how these forms of power are
inextricably linked. (Note that the turbine
in this panel resembles an ear, maybe emphasizing the managers’ oversight of
the workers.)
NORTH AND SOUTH WALLS
The north and south walls are devoted to representations of
the four races (two on each wall, at the top tier), the automobile industry (in
the large mid-sections), and the other Detroit industries—medicine, drugs, gas
bomb manufacture, and commercial chemicals (in the side panels). They continue the themes established on the
east and west walls which combine ancient and Christian symbols. The organization of each wall follows a
pattern: monumental figures on top, the worker’s everyday world of the
factories in the center, and small monochrome, so-called predella panels
showing a day in the life of a worker on the lower edge. (An actual predella is a painting or
sculpture along the frame at the bottom of an altarpiece.)
North and South
Walls: The Four Races Panels
On the upper level of the north and south walls, Rivera
painted giant red (representing Native North and South Americans), black
(Africans), yellow (Asians), and white (Europeans) female figures symbolic of
the diverse workforce. Each figure holds
in her hand one of the raw materials necessary for making steel and cars—Rivera
attributed the tensile strength of the raw materials with his conception of the
character of each race: the red race he associated with iron ore (the first
ingredient for making steel for the first race in the Americas), the black race
with diamonds and coal (which provides the hardness of steel as the black
laborer affords to the manufacturing process), the yellow race with quartz sand
(silica, used in making glass), and the white race with the building material
of limestone.
North and South
Walls: Geological Strata Panels
Below the four races panels, Rivera painted geological
cross-sections showing iron ore under the red race, coal and diamonds under the
black race, limestone under the white race, and quartz crystals and fossils
under the yellow race.
North and South Wall
Corner Panels: Vaccination, Manufacture of Poisonous Gas Bombs, Pharmaceutics, and Commercial Chemical Operations
On both sides of the four races panels on the north and
south walls, Rivera painted corner panels that serve as visual parentheses to
the gigantic figures. They continue the
themes of the unity of organic and inorganic life and the constructive and
destructive uses of technology.
North Wall: Vaccination Panel
The north wall right corner panel depicts a child being
vaccinated by a doctor who is attended by a nurse. The composition of this panel is directly
taken from the Italian Renaissance form of the nativity, where the biblical
figures of Mary (the nurse, a portrait of actress Jean Harlow) and Joseph (the
doctor, a likeness of William Valentiner), and Jesus (the baby being inoculated;
his face is modeled on the infant son of Charles and Anne Lindbergh, kidnapped
and murdered in March 1932) are depicted in the foreground and the three wise
men in the background. The three wise men—which
Rivera identified as a Catholic, a Protestant, and a Jew, the ecumenical wise
men of the modern world—are scientists who dissect dogs for the benefit of
human health. In the foreground are a
horse (not a donkey as is common in Christian iconography), a sheep, and a cow,
the sources of the vaccines. Vaccines
are made in the background by three scientists in a dissection laboratory. This is the panel that depicts the “good” science
that benefits life.
North Wall: Healthy Human Embryo Panel
Below the vaccination panel, a healthy human embryo is shown
gaining sustenance from the geological strata and at the same time being
threatened by microscopic images of diseases. The embryo sac is surrounded by an egg. Sperm, multiplying chromosomes, red and white
blood cells, and six forms of bacteria are associated with the work of the
three scientists in the vaccination panel.
North Wall: Manufacture of Poisonous Gas Bombs
On the left corner is a frightening depiction of the
production of gas bombs by insect-like (or perhaps alien?) figures in gas masks. Gas canisters and a completed bomb hangs
ominously over their heads. This panel
illustrates the “bad” science that harms life.
North Wall: Cells Suffocated by Poisonous Gas
The small panel below the production of gas bombs shows a
microscopic view of cells being attacked and destroyed by poisonous gases.
South Wall: Pharmaceutics Panel
Pharmaceutics is
based on drawings of the Parke-Davis pharmaceutical firm in Detroit. The figure in the foreground represents the
chemist/manager, who is surrounded by devices such as a pill sorter, an adding
machine on top of a Gothic-style radio, a microphone, and a telephone. Women sorting pills surround the manager. The background shows drying ovens and chemical
operations.
South Wall: Surgery Panel
The small panel below the Pharmaceutics panel depicts brain surgery in the center, surrounded
by human organs, and the same four geological elements found in the middle tiers—iron,
coal, limestone, and sand. Above the
gloved hands is a view of an open skull. The right hand of the surgeon has just
extracted a brain tumor. Rivera divided
the organs between those of reproduction on the right and digestion on the
left. On the upper right side of Surgery, male and female sexual glands
are represented. Digestive organs are
presented on the left. In the lower foreground Rivera painted three covered
dissecting trays.
South Wall: Commercial Chemical Operations Panel
The right corner panel may depict a magnesium cell operation
or perhaps an ammonia operation. The
panel is stylistically and compositionally the most sophisticated of the upper
panels. It is painted in a Futurist style
to demonstrate the movement of the workers, showing them in two different
positions. Use of this style is rare in
Rivera’s work.
The figure in the lower left holds a torch to heat
substances in the drums. In the left
background a man in a lab coat works with standard chemical apparatus at a
table. Behind him a workman studies
gauges probably related to the ovens. In
the upper right a man may be working on a brine well drilling process.
South Wall: Sulfur and Potash Panel
Below the Chemical
panel, the natural state of sulfur and potash is shown. The crystals on the left are halite, or table
salt; the crystals on the right are sulfur. In the center, spherical objects in the four
groups are suspended in gaseous fumes emanating from the salt and sulfur. This panel continues the theme of the
development of life from inanimate material.
North Wall: Production and Manufacture of Engine and
Transmission
On the largest panel of the north wall Rivera combined the
interiors of five buildings at the Rouge: the blast furnace, open hearth
furnace, production foundry, motor assembly plant, and steel rolling mills. (Near the blast furnace is a figure in a
bowler hat among the workers. This is a
self-portrait of Rivera intended to show his solidarity with the workers in
whose midst he stands.) The panel
represents all the important operations in the production and manufacture of an
automobile, specifically the engine and transmission housing of the 1932 Ford
V-8, all tied together with the ribbon of the conveyor belt (the Rouge had 120
miles of it) and assembly lines (at its peak, the pant employed 100,000
workers), like some immense, symbolic circulatory system. One of the first stages in the production of
steel is carried out in the blast furnaces, glowing the red and orange of
extreme heat, where iron ore, coke (made from coal), and limestone are reduced
by heat to make iron. Here, the blast
furnace, the dominant background image, is the terminus of a processional way
created by two rows of multiple spindles accompanied by conveyor lines. The spindles, which focus the viewer’s
attention to the furnace, resemble Toltec guardians, connecting the modern
technology to an earlier, pre-industrial time.
The steel milling processes then continue in the predella panels below.
Rivera included a variety of faces
and physiques in his figures, reflecting the multiracial work force at Ford as
well as his own assistants on the mural project. Though in the 1930s, the assembly-line
workers at the Ford plant (as elsewhere in industry) were all white—the
non-white workers being relegated to the menial and unpleasant jobs—Rivera
painted his ideal workers as representing racially mixed laborers working
harmoniously together. His emphasis on
the multiracial workforce in the automobile panels expressed a Marxist hope for
the future power of the working class.
South Wall: Production of Automobile Exterior and Final
Assembly
Rivera combined another five buildings at the Rouge in the
major panel of the south wall: the Pressed Steel Building (now Dearborn
Stamping Plant); B Building (now Dearborn Assembly Plant); the Spring and Upset
Building: By-products Building; and the Glass Plant. This automotive panel is devoted to the
production of the exterior of the 1932 Ford V-8 and its final assembly. Unlike the north wall, this panel is not
organized in production sequence, although all the major operations are
included. The creation of the automobile
body parts begins at the right, where the monumental stamping press produces
fenders out of large sheets of steel. A
cluster of stamping presses appears in the upper left section.
The huge stamping press in this panel is of special
note. In all of Rivera’s Detroit Industry murals, he prided
himself in the accuracy of the machines he represented, but this machine was an
older version of the one in use at the plant, a sleeker and more modern-looking
press. Rivera saw in the older version a
resemblance to Coatlicue, the Aztec goddess of creation. Both a giver and destroyer of life, Coatlicue
was fed human hearts as a sacrifice to keep her maintaining the order of the
universe. Rivera saw the assembly-line
laborers as sacrificial victims of overwork, repetitive (machine-like) motion,
and noxious fumes, to the worship of the mechanical gods of industry and
capitalism. The stamping press-Coatlicue
presided over this sacrifice.
After the auto body parts are stamped into forms, they are
spot welded. Spot welding is carried out
to the lower left of the stamping press. The surface is then smoothed out in the
buffing process, which is in the lower left foreground. Workmen are being observed by a foreman in hat
and glasses. This figure represents the
constant hostile supervision at Ford by production managers who were more
interested in quotas than in the conditions of the workers or their
environment.
At the top of the panel in the center is the welding buck
where the separate parts are welded into the body of the car. To the right of the buck, women sew upholstery
and to the left, painters spray the bodies before they are conveyed into the
ovens. Below the welding buck is the
final assembly of the car. Men use pulleys to
secure the chassis to the line. Along
the line, the motors are lowered into the chassis, wheels attached, and the
body secured. At the very end of the
assembly line Rivera painted a tiny red car speeding off into time and space. The focus of the panel is on the work; the end
result, the distant and nearly unnoticeable red Ford, is not the heart of the
effort. The tiny, four-inch-long car (in
a panel that measures nearly 800 square feet), driving off the assembly line,
all but disappears into the “process.”
There are two groups of people who are not workers in this
panel. The first is a tour group made up
of dour-faced bourgeoisie who look blankly or disapprovingly at the workers. (Tours of the plant, which were then quite
common, to see the workers at their hard labor, was reminiscent of the
18th-century practice of encouraging ordinary people to visit asylums to gawk
at the crazy folk.) Some figures are
reminiscent of comic strip characters such as Dick Tracy and the Katzenjammer
Kids. The second group is two observers
standing at the lower right section. Rivera
painted these two figures in the traditional position of Italian Renaissance
donors. On the left is a portrait of
Edsel B. Ford and on the right a portrait of William Valentiner. Valentiner holds the contract for the mural
project.
Predella Panels
Apart from their similarity to Italian medieval and
Renaissance altar paintings, Rivera’s predella panels are also reminiscent, in
their monochromaticism, of traditional grisaille,
paintings executed entirely or mostly in shades of grey, where the intent
was to create the illusion of a sculptural frieze. He used the predella both to show a day in the
life of a worker—punching in, performing their regular routines, returning home
after the workday—and to illustrate some of the major production processes not
easily included in the larger panels. The
predella panels appear as if fixed to steel gates, which separate the viewer
from the workers in the automotive panel. The center of each gate is open with handles
and chains on each sliding door, inviting the viewer into the factory space.
When the murals were
revealed to the public, several groups and individuals raised objections. Some even lamented the loss of the Garden
Court, with its palm trees, central fountain, and empty walls. Bluenoses labeled the nudes symbolizing
fertility pornographic. The vaccination
panel was called sacrilegious by clergy because it evoked the nativity scene
for secular purposes. The factory scenes
showed the different races working together harmoniously, an affront to
segregationists who were the prevailing population in Jim Crow America.
A front-page Detroit News editorial, calling the
murals “un-American,” “a slander,” “vulgar,” and “coarse,” demanded they be
whitewashed. It didn’t help that many
questioned why a Mexican communist had been hired to paint the works over an
American artist during a time of such widespread joblessness. (This casual xenophobia wasn’t limited to the
artist: the Detroit Free Press also
noted that DIA director Valentiner was German-born.) Some critics asserted that Rivera had
presented the city with a graphic Communist Manifesto.
The notorious Father
Charles Coughlin, a vocal anti-Semite and supporter of Adolf Hitler and Benito
Mussolini, denounced Rivera and the murals on his popular radio program and Rev.
H. Ralph Higgins of Grand Rapids’ St. Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral held meetings
of prominent Detroiters who opposed the paintings. Both called for the murals’ destruction.
Edsel Ford, however, calmed
the outcry with his statement: “I admire Rivera’s spirit. I really believe he was trying to express his
idea of the spirit of Detroit.” (Some
have long suspected that Ford engineered the protests and denunciations to
build up curiosity and interest in the murals.
If he did, his tactic worked!)
Supporters of the
murals also spoke out, especially the unions, which saw in Rivera’s portrayals
of the workers a tribute to their dignity and hard work. Rivera recorded later that he viewed this as
proof that they felt the murals “had been created exclusively for the pleasure
of the workers of this city.” Prominent
intellectuals and fellow artists, the same voices that had protested the
destruction of Man at the Crossroads
in New York, spoke in favor of the work as well. 100,000 visitors came to see the murals in
the month after they were opened to the public, sometimes as many as 10,000 in
a single day, and 1934 saw DIA’s patronage rise to its highest level in its
seven-year history.
In the 1950’s, at the
height of the McCarthyist anti-communist era, the controversy of Rivera’s
Marxism reemerged. The DIA put up a
large sign that averred that “Rivera's politics and his publicity seeking are
detestable,” but went on to insist that the artist painted Detroit’s industry
and technology as “wonderful and very exciting” and “as one of the great
achievements of the twentieth century.” The
DIA administration ended with the statement: “If we are proud of this city's
achievements, we should be proud of these paintings.”
Today, the artistic
value of Rivera’s Detroit Industry is
no longer even in question. They are
universally recognized as masterpieces, even if you don’t agree with or even
particularly like the social commentary the artist incorporated in his
art. If the murals provoke disagreement
or debate on that level . . . well, then, they have accomplished what Rivera intended.
[A few weeks before Rivera arrived in Detroit, there
was a hunger march on Ford’s River Rouge Plant in protest of layoffs. The police, the army, and Pinkerton agents
opened fire on the marchers, killing five people and wounding 20. Though many Detroiters wondered why Henry Ford,
Edsel’s father and the founder of the automobile firm, acquiesced in the mural
project, there was a very strong feeling, not supported by Ford Company records,
that Henry Ford did not block the murals because he felt it would be good
publicity for the company to do something so grand. This labor unrest (which was even echoed in
Rivera’s professional relationship with his assistants), like the Depression
itself, was not portrayed in the murals in any way, which presented the labor
as harmonious and nearly utopian.
[The Detroit Institute of Arts is located at 5200
Woodward Avenue, Detroit, MI 48202; (313) 833-7900 (TDD: (313) 833-1454). It’s
open Tuesdays and Wednesdays, 9 a.m.-4 p.m.; Thursdays and Fridays, 9 a.m.-10
p.m.; Saturdays and Sundays, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; closed Mondays. (There are special extended hours for Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo
in Detroit.) Admission is $8 for adults, $6
for seniors, $5 for students (with student photo ID), and $4 for children 6-17;
children under 6, residents of Wayne, Oakland and Macomb Counties, and DIA
members (with driver’s license) are admitted free. (Active military personnel and their families
are admitted free from May 30 to September 5.)
For travel directions and further information, visit the DIA website, http://www.dia.org.]
