The Mechanization of the Country - Diego Rivera
Archival giclée
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Description
A section of Diego Rivera's Ministry of Education mural cycle, depicting the transition from traditional agrarian life to industrialisation in Mexico.
This work is a section of the expansive mural cycle painted by Diego Rivera for the Ministry of Education in Mexico City. Executed between 1923 and 1928, the murals represent a significant period in post-revolutionary Mexican art, where the state commissioned artists to create public works that communicated national identity and social progress to a broad audience.
The composition depicts the intersection of traditional agrarian life and the arrival of industrial technology. In the centre, a woman holds maize, a symbol of indigenous heritage and sustenance. Surrounding her are elements of modernisation, including tractors and industrial infrastructure, which suggest the changing nature of labour in the Mexican countryside. To the right, armed figures stand in a group, referencing the revolutionary history that preceded this era of state-led development. The use of a warm, earthy palette reflects the connection to the land, while the figures are rendered with the monumental, solid forms characteristic of Rivera's style.
Rivera employed the fresco technique, applying pigment directly onto wet lime plaster. This method required rapid execution and resulted in a durable, matte surface that integrates with the architecture of the building. The figures are arranged in a manner that guides the viewer across the wall, balancing individual human presence with the broader narrative of national transformation. This piece captures the tension between historical tradition and the rapid adoption of new machinery, providing a visual record of the ideological goals of the Mexican government during the 1920s.
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Each print is produced to order using 12-colour giclée printing on FSC-certified archival paper. Designed in Britain and printed at your nearest production hub to reduce waste and speed up delivery.
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Specific Features
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- Museum-grade giclée printing for rich, fade-resistant colour
- Archival matte fine-art paper, FSC-certified
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- Frames in black, natural wood, dark wood or white
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Materials & Sizing
Museum-grade giclée on FSC-certified archival matte paper, with framed and canvas options.
- Paper sizes: A4, A3, A2, A1, A0 and B2 (50×70 cm)
- Canvas: XS (20×30 cm) to Large (60×90 cm)
- Frames: black, natural wood, dark wood or white
The Mechanization of the Country - Diego Rivera
Artist Biography
Diego Rivera
He studied at the Academy of San Carlos in Mexico City and spent fourteen years in Europe (1907-1921), absorbing Cubism in Paris and working alongside Picasso, Modigliani, and Mondrian. He returned to Mexico and found his subject: the history, labour, and people of his country, painted in a style that combined Renaissance fresco technique with pre-Columbian imagery and Marxist ideology.
The Detroit Industry Murals at the Detroit Institute of Arts (1932-33) are twenty-seven panels depicting the Ford Motor Company's River Rouge plant. The workers are heroic. The machinery is beautiful. Henry Ford's son Edsel commissioned them. The business community wanted them destroyed. They survived.
He married Frida Kahlo in 1929. They divorced in 1939. They remarried in 1940. The relationship was mutually unfaithful, politically intense, and artistically productive for both of them. Rivera said Kahlo was the better painter. Whether he believed this or was performing generosity is an open question.
He accepted a commission from Nelson Rockefeller for a mural in Rockefeller Center in 1933 and included a portrait of Lenin. Rockefeller asked him to remove it. Rivera refused. The mural was destroyed. Rivera repainted it in Mexico City. He died in 1957, at seventy.
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