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RIVERA, Diego, Mexican painter born in Guanajuato, Mexico, Dec. 8, 1886 and died in Mexico City, Nov. 25, 1957. A great Mexican painter, Rivera is of Spanish and Indian ancestry. When he was six his parents moved to Mexico City where he was entered in a drawing class at the Academy of San Carlos. At 12 he enrolled as a pupil of Felix Para, an academic painter. His admiration of Aztec sculpture made him discontented with the art of his day and he began to study the Indians and to paint them. The crayons and oils which he exhibited found a ready sale and, with the proceeds and a grant from the governor of Vera Cruz, he went to Spain. There he had an opportunity to study Velazquez and Goya. His companions in Spain were young revolutionists.

Next he went to France where he met the leading postimpressionists, became a friend of Pablo Picasso, and was temporarily drawn into the cubist movement. Later he visited England where he read Karl Marx. In 1910 he returned to his native country and participated in a revolution there.

His second trip to Europe occurred in 1917. He spent some time in Italy and was much impressed with Giotto's great frescoes in the Arena Chapel at Padua. Giotto's influence was reflected in the monumental solidity of Rivera's forms.

Rivera gave up easel painting after his visit to Padua and became a painter of murals with a social message. He painted frescoes in Mexico City, Detroit, Chicago, and New York. The mural in Rockefeller Center, New York, caused tremendous controversy after the revolutionary painter introduced a portrait of Nikolai Lenin. The mural was finally cut from the wall, which aroused the protests of fellow artists and political allies.