A Master Reawakened

THE PASSAGE OF time can be a merciless arbiter of reputation. Fashions evolve, sometimes double-back, and often peter out altogether. This is as true for art as it is for haute couture. Live long enough, and you’ll see how quickly “The Next Big Thing” turns into tomorrow’s “Never Was,” how this morning’s outrage de-evolves into this evening’s commonplace. All of which is worth taking into account when considering the fortunes of the Mexican painter Diego Rivera (1886-1957).

Dial back the clock 50 to 70 years ago, and you’d discover that even the most cursory student of art would have recognized Rivera’s name. He was a star, a hard-charging, bigger-than-life talent whose work was sought after by Henry Ford, John D. Rockefeller and other captains of industry. A luminary amongst luminaries, Rivera counted among his friends at the expense of any coherent social philosophy. And his ego! Forget fools: Rivera suffered no one gladly. His squabbles with all and sundry—the Soviet Union no less than the Ancient Mystical Order Rosae Crucis, an organization predicated on a wooly brand of occultism—were the stuff of legend. Rivera played life to the hilt. The world paid attention.