Diego Rivera’s America March 11 - July 31, 2023

Diego Rivera’s America provides a vision of a unified America through colorful paintings, epic murals, and three major paintings by Frida Kahlo. The exhibition will be on view to the public at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art from March 11 until July 31, 2023.

In his public murals and paintings, Diego Rivera painted human experience—families and workers, struggles and celebrations, histories and imagined futures. Between the early 1920s and the early 1940s, he worked in both Mexico and the United States and found inspiration in the social and cultural life of the two countries. He envisioned an America—broadly understood—that shared an Indigenous past and an industrial future, and where cooperation, rather than divisions, were paramount.

Diego Rivera’s America examines this prolific time in the artist’s life through more than 130 works, including his drawings, easel paintings, frescoes, and more. The first major exhibition focused solely on the Mexican artist in over 20 years, it reveals the broad range of Rivera’s work through a series of thematic sections that bring together more works from this time period than have been seen together since the artist’s lifetime.

The exhibition features iconic works such as Dance in Tehuantepec (1928), The Flowered Canoe (1931), Nude with Calla Lilies (1944) and other depictions of flower carriers and vendors, and three major paintings by Frida Kahlo, all done in San Francisco, including a self-portrait of her standing next to Rivera. The exhibition includes rarely seen works from private collections, major paintings on loan from museums in both the United States and Mexico, studies for pivotal mural projects in Mexico City, San Francisco, Detroit, and New York, as well as large-scale digital projections that convey the immersive quality of his epic murals.

The exhibition is a ticketed event: Adult tickets are $12. Tickets are free for members, SNAP participants, Veterans, and youth 18. Tickets and museum information available HERE.

Above, left to right: : Portrait of Lupe Marin , 1938 Oil on canvas , Museo de Arte Moderno, InBal, Mexico City ; Dance in Tehuantepec, 1938 Oil on canvas, Collecton of Eduardo F. Constantini, Buenos Aires: Frieda and Diego Rivera, 1931 Oil on canvas (this one by Frida Kahlo), San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

Diego Rivera’s America is co-organized by Crystal Bridges and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Crystal Bridges is the second and final venue for this exhibition.

Exhibition sponsors include Goldman Sachs, Christie’s, Coca-Cola, Shelby and Frederick Gans, Avocados From Peru, Blakeman’s Fine Jewelry, Esther Silver-Parker, Halperin Foundation, and Jim and Susan von Gremp. This project is supported in part by a grant from the Arkansas Humanities Council and the National Endowment for the Humanities.