Tag Archives: frescoes

Diego Rivera Murals in San Francisco: Critical Guide for Visiting

There are three Diego Rivera frescoes in San Francisco, California. To get in to see them all is not easy, but it is well worth the effort. It was an incredible treat to be able to see these frescoes up close and personal. A word of advice: it’s very important to plan and confirm your visits in advance.

In Mexico, Rivera intended his murals to be accessible to the public. That was an important social and political premise of the Mexican Muralist Movement — art for and of the people. All are filled with consistent Rivera themes: the worker, the common soldier, the peasant farmer and industry. These murals mirror those in Mexico City of the same era (like Man, Controller of the Universe) and I recognize similar scenes and characters.

Looking for Diego Rivera + Frida Kahlo in Mexico City: 3-Day Art History Tour

These are the three murals in order of their creation:

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Pan American Unity, left half

Pan American Unity, left half

Pan American Unity, right side

Pan American Unity, right half

These are the three murals in order of accessibility:

San Francisco Art Institute

The most accessible fresco is The Making of a Fresco Showing the Building of a City at the San Francisco Art Institute, open 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. This is a private, degree-granting university. Doors are open to students and to the public Monday through Friday. Check for weekend hours. The challenge is to find parking around the steep Cow Hollow hills. But if you are in a taxi or take UBER, no worries.

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The mural is at the end of a student exhibition gallery space on the main level to the left of the entry courtyard. We followed good directional signs to get there. Once inside, the floor to ceiling wall art dominates the space.

This is a painting within a painting. Rivera included himself (back to viewer, with his ample frame centered on the scaffolding) with helpers making a fresco. His patrons who financed the project are part of the set. It reminds me of the caricature portraits we see at the Palacio Nacional depicting the history of Mexico that Rivera started in 1929 at about the same time. In fact, this Mexico City mural was not completed for another ten years because of commissions like this one in the U.S. It is very Rivera with a bold figures, the central one wearing a red star. You will see a lot of similarities here if you are familiar with his style.

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There is a small donation box in front suggesting support for mural preservation. We didn’t find hand-out information, art history notes or guestbook. The best descriptions are online, which I suggest you read before visiting.

800 Chestnut Street (between Jones and Leavenworth), San Francisco, CA 94133. Phone: 415-771-7020

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Looking for Diego Rivera + Frida Kahlo in Mexico City: 3-Day Art History Tour

City College of San Francisco

Located in the Sunset on a hill overlooking the Pacific Ocean, City College of San Francisco boasts a comprehensive historical reference mural to The Marriage of the Artistic Expression of the North and the South on this Continent.  Informally called The Pan American Unity Mural, Rivera painted it in 1940 for the Golden Gate International Exposition on Treasure Island.

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He was invited by civic and arts leaders to participate in the Exposition’s “Art in Action” program, joining other prominent artists. Fair-goers watched while Rivera and his assistants painted!

Frida Kahlo, who marries Rivera for the second time in San Francisco in 1940, stands front and center, while Rivera, his back to the viewer, holds the hand of actress Paulette Goddard. This mural is the most political of the three San Francisco pieces and is parallel in style to the Palacio Nacional mural of the same era, each featuring the founding fathers of Mexico and the USA.

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Because of state funding cuts, visiting hours at SFCC are limited. Please consult the website to see when there is a volunteer faculty/staff member scheduled to open the Diego Rivera Theatre where the mural can be seen.

This important mural is housed in a very cramped space. I was told that for years the intent has been to build a larger gallery to view it. But … the college depends on designated private gifts to realize project goals. A small donation box sits in front of the mural. We gave more than requested for a beautiful, thorough art history brochure with color photo. Thanks to the college for providing this!

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Notes: Be sure to walk upstairs to a small balcony (don’t trip, it’s also used for storage) to get the most expansive view of the mural. From above, the center view is obstructed by a large carved wood sculpture that obstructs the experience. Free street parking available.

50 Phelan Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94112. Viewing Hours are posted on the website. Phone only goes to voicemail: 415-452-5313

The City Club of San Francisco

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Rivera asked Olympic swimmer Helen Willis to model.

Our experience at The City Club of San Francisco, an exclusive, members only space on the 10th floor of the former Pacific Stock Exchange, proved that you can’t always trust what you read online, even from USA Today. We read the mural was open for viewing from 3 to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday. Not exactly true.

We found out the hard way that you can only gain entrance to see the mural if you make an appointment in advance with a City Club staffer. Denied entry and after repeated phone calls from the lobby that all went to voicemail, we finally connected with a live person. When I introduced myself and requested a visit, I got a harsh scolding about not having an appointment, a tirade about this being a private club, a rant about not to trust internet information, then a reluctant agreement to allow us upstairs to see the mural for ten minutes. We were shocked by staff behavior because of the club’s great reputation for hospitality.

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As we emerged from the elevator, the staffer hid a candy jar from her desktop where she sits sentry on the landing in front of the mural. Seems other riffraff before us dipped into the candy dish and she is keeping a watchful eye.

Lobby, Stock Exchange Tower Building, Art Deco

Lobby, Stock Exchange Tower

The staffer we met is definitely the gatekeeper. You need to call in advance, make an appointment and purr. I wouldn’t say you know me.

Do you think Diego would roll over in his grave?

Stock Exchange Tower, 155 Sansome Street, San Francisco, CA 94104. Phone: 415-362-2480

 

 

Recommendations:

  • Call in advance to each site to confirm opening times.
  • Make an advance appointment directly with The City Club to see the mural there.
  • Educate yourself. Read about each mural in advance since only the City College of San Francisco may publish an art history description.
  • Devote a half-day for visiting the three murals. They are in different parts of the city and traffic can be difficult.
  • Be ready to pay at least $16 per hour to park near the City Club if you are driving a car. Park farther out and use UBER.
  • Be prepared to be disappointed. You may not get in to all venues.
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View from the rooftop terrace, SF Art Institute with Alcatraz.

Looking for Frida Kahlo + Diego Rivera in Mexico City: Art History Tour

Suggested Visiting Route:

  • 11 a.m. — San Francisco Art Institute (open 9 a.m.-7 p.m.)
  • 1 p.m. — City College of San Francisco (open 1-3 p.m.)
  • 3:30 p.m. City Club of San Francisco (by appointment only — call 415-362-2480 well in advance. Purr when you talk to staff.)

A BIG thank you to East Bay friend Mary Ann for organizing this day and driving to all parts of The City.

Coit Tower from the SF Art Institute rooftop terrace.

Coit Tower from the SF Art Institute rooftop terrace. See the Bay Bridge?

 

Looking for Frida Kahlo + Diego Rivera: Art History Tour 2015

Come to Mexico City for an art history tour to explore the lives of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera through their art.

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2015 Schedule

  • April 9 – 13, 2015

We will have a long weekend — 4 nights and 5 days, to learn about Diego Rivera‘s stunning Mexico City murals, visit Casa Azul where Diego and Frida Kahlo lived, and see the largest private collection of their work at the Dolores Olmedo Museum.  Through their eyes, you will better understand Mexico’s political, cultural and social history.

If you want to register, send me an email.

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Our guide is art historian Valeria Espitia, M.F.A.,  who shares her passion for the Mexican Muralists and narrates the expedition.  She leads us through these spaces to give you the most meaningful educational experience:

  • Palacio Nacional
  • Palacio Bellas Artes
  • Museo de Mural de Diego Rivera
  • Secretaria de Educacion Publica (SEP)
  • San Ildefonso National Preparatory School and Abelardo Rodriguez market
  • Casa Azul — the home of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo
  • Museo Dolores Olmedo Patiño

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Casa Azul  — Museo Frida Kahlo is a tribute to the life of both artists. Museo Dolores Olmedo Patiño has the largest private collection of Frida and Diego paintings in the world. She was a benefactor and life-long personal friend of Rivera.

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Plus, we will shop for outstanding folk art, and eat at local markets, historic and fine contemporary and traditional restaurants!

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The trip includes:

  • 4 nights lodging at a top-rated, historic center hotel
  • guided discussions by art historian Valeria Espitia, MFA, educated at UNAM and Southern Methodist University
  • visits to folk art galleries
  • introduction to Norma’s favorite restaurants (meals not included)
  • transportation to Casa Azul and Dolores Olmedo Museum

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Preliminary Itinerary

  • Day 1, Thursday: travel day, arrive and check into our hotel.  Join in for an optional group welcome dinner (arrive by 6 p.m.)
  • Day 2, Friday: guided visit to SEP, San Idlefonso, and the Abelardo Rodriguez market where Rivera’s students painted, optional group dinner
  • Day 3, Saturday: guided visit to Palacio Bellas Artes and Museo Mural de Diego Rivera, optional folk art shopping
  • Day 4, Sunday:  guided visit to Casa Azul and Museo Dolores Olmedo Patiño
  • Day 5, Monday: depart

Be ready to WALK and then, walk some more!  Don’t forget to bring an extra suitcase to pack the treasures you pick up along the way.

Cost:  $695 per person double occupancy.  $995 per person single occupancy.

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What the trip doesn’t include:

  • breakfasts, lunches, dinners, snacks, alcoholic beverages
  • transportation to/from Mexico City
  • museum admission fees
  • mandatory international health/accident insurance
  • tips for hotels, meals and other services

Cost:  $695 per person double occupancy.  $995 per person single occupancy. Maximum: 6 people.

Optional: Arrive early and/or stay later to discover Mexico City and her incredible museums and restaurants. We will provide you with a list  of recommendations to explore on your own. $200 per day per person additional. Tell us your dates and we will make your hotel reservations and include this in your invoice.

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Reservations and Cancellations

A 50% deposit will guarantee your spot.  The final payment for the balance is due 45 days before the program start date.  Payment shall be made by PayPal.  We will send you an itemized PayPal invoice.

Please understand that we make lodging and other arrangements months in advance of the program.  Deposits or payments in full are often required by our hosts.  If cancellation is necessary, please tell us in writing by email.   After 45 days before the program starts, no refunds are possible.  However, we will make every possible effort to fill your reserved space or you may send a substitute.  If you cancel on or before the 45 day date, we will refund 50% of your deposit.

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Required–Travel Health/Accident Insurance:  We require that you carry international accident/health/emergency evacuation insurance.  Proof of insurance must be sent at least two weeks before departure.  If you do not wish to do this, we ask you email a PDF of a signed and witnessed waiver of liability, holding harmless Norma Hawthorne and Oaxaca Cultural Navigator LLC.  Unforeseen circumstances happen!

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To register, email us at  normahawthorne@mac.com. We accept payment with PayPal only. Thank you.

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This workshop is produced by Norma Hawthorne, Oaxaca Cultural Navigator LLC.  We reserve the right to adjust the itinerary and substitute leaders without notice.

P.S. Looking for Diego Rivera in San Francisco, California, USA

Just in from my sister Barbara who lives in the Bay Area.  USA Today publishes How to Visit Diego Rivera Murals in San Francisco.  Here is the complete list, open hours, and specific locations.  Enjoy!

In Mexico City: Looking for Diego Rivera

Frida Kahlo, iconic painter, called him The Frog and married him twice.  They count her as his third and fourth wife.  We know Diego Rivera as a communist, socialist, painter, bad boy of 1930’s Mexico who snubbed Nelson Rockefeller by refusing to eliminate Lenin’s portrait from the infamous Rockefeller Center mural.  Fired and his mural destroyed, Rivera retreated from New York to Mexico City to reproduce his vision of humanity, Man at the Crossroads, on the walls of the Palacio de Bellas Artes.  Look for Rockefeller in this mural.

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All the photos in this blog post are of murals at the Secretaria de Educacion Publica (SEP) in Mexico City.

As I write this, I am traveling on a six-and-a-half hour ADO GL bus south toward Oaxaca.  There is the promise of torrential hurricane force rains along the way.  A good time to reflect on the four days I spent in Mexico City to look for Diego Rivera.

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I love his paintings but not his personal behavior: his violent temper and many infidelities.  I can understand it but don’t admire it.  Is behavior a reflection of character and how can you separate one from the other?  Must one accept the totality of the artist to love his or her work?

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In 2012, a distant friend told me that she, too, loved Diego Rivera.  I questioned her because she had just declared her intention to vote for Mitt Romney — the antithesis of Rivera and his political passion. I replied: To love Diego Rivera is to respect, support, and admire his political stand.  You can’t separate the man from his work.  She disagreed.  What do you think?

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Rivera’s paintings are iconic and symbolic. They express his political and social empathy for Mexico’s indigenous, her revolutionaries, intellectuals, reformers, and anti-capitalists, and his disdain for the church and oppressors of any ilk.  Rivera’s murals are a riveting, visceral history of human rights violations beginning with the invasion of Cortes, the Inquisition in New Spain, the Porfiriato and exploding power of Fascism.  

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In sweeping fashion, Rivera captures all that accompanies political power seekers: corruption, greed, debauchery, dictatorship, and assassination.  His imagery depicts the rise of industrialization and its dehumanizing forces, the tensions of machinery vs. man, the movement from rural life to the crush of cities where personal identity is lost or stolen.  He speaks to us of the soul of humanity and our purest impulses for compassion and forgiveness.

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There is a strong message in the beauty he created.  Support of the proletarian revolution is the guiding theme among them all.

The paintings speak to Mexican life and specific people Rivera singled out populate them, like Emiliano Zapata and Otillio Montaño.  He manages to insert himself with self-portraits throughout his works, too. 

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In a 1928 fresco at the Secretaria de Educacion Publica (SEP) a red-ribbon banner painted above In the Arsenal holds these words (interpreted and paraphrased):

Here will be the proletarian revolution.

Voices will open to loudly proclaim throughout the land

The sad, sordid but pure story

That many suffered

Were maligned and oppressed.

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Do you see Rivera’s self-portrait here?

Rivera is a storyteller.  The three floors of paintings at SEP are remarkable expressions of his early period, 1923-1928.  This is also where he met Frida Kahlo, the seventeen-year-old student who came to him while he was on a scaffold to ask his opinion of her work.

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At SEP, I was fortunate enough to be able to trail a group of teachers on a guided tour through areas usually restricted to the public.  Afterward, I lingered and revisited favorites.  In 1928, Rivera painted Death of Capitalism, The Orgy, and Wall Street Banquet, a cynical prediction of the 1929 stock market crash.   His pre-Hispanic images of rural indigenous life are compelling:  Dia de los Muertos, Fiesta of the Dance of the Deer, El Tianguis (the market), The Weavers, The Dyers, and Paradise

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I spent three hours at SEP and want to go back.  It could be my favorite place to look for Diego Rivera.  I know the man and his art are one, and for that reason I have gained a new admiration and respect for him from this visit.

Looking for Diego Rivera in Mexico City 

  1. Secretaria de Educacion Publica, Ave. Republica de Argentina #28, weekdays only.  Walk from Zocalo. Three floors of exquisite murals, 1923-1928.
  2. Museo Mural Diego Rivera, corner of Avenidas Balderas & Colon, facing Av. Juarez at the end of the Alameda Central.  Mural restored after 1989 (check date) earthquake and relocated.  An amazing journey through Mexico’s political, social history from 1521 to mid-20th century (check date)
  3. Palacio Nacional on the Zocalo
  4. Palacio de Bellas Artes, on Av. Juarez
  5. Municipal Water Pumping Station, Rivera sculpture of rain god Tlaloc

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Now, perhaps on to Detroit and San Francisco to continue the search.

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Footnotes:  SEP was created in 1921 and the building where it is housed is a former convent, a magnificent colonial structure, appropriated by the state when the church was banned from holding land.  I met Miriam, educated in art restoration at the Instituto Bottcelli in Cuernavaca, who is one of an eight-person team who work year-round to restore and preserve the murals.

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In Mexico City: Lunch at Mercado Abelardo L. Rodriguez

Down the street from Santo Domingo Plaza and the museum of the Inquisition in New Spain is Mercado Abelardo L. Rodriguez, a historic neighborhood market filled with lunch stalls, fruit and vegetable stands, and puestos selling cooking staples..  It is known for housing extraordinary murals by students of Diego Rivera, though most visitors to Mexico City are unaware of this landmark.

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This is a people’s market, very different from the Mercado San Juan, the upscale, exotic, European-style food court near Palacio Bellas Artes.

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Hungarian photographer Agnes Behari sent me there.  I met her on the steps of the Santo Domingo Church while I was shooting the texture of the door.  She asked about my camera, told me she is an MFA student in documentary photography at the Academy of San Carlos, part of UNAM, and as we were talking the doors to the chapel closed and I never got in.  Time for lunch.

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Agnes said there are murals by Diego Rivera inside.  Not exactly!  The murals are by his students who painted them under his supervision.  However, once I got there, I was so overwhelmed by market activity and making a decision about which stall to sit down at, I totally forgot about the murals.  Something for the next visit!

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Food and art.  Art and food.  What is more important?  At the moment, food.  And where to eat it.  Choosing where to eat can be tricky.  Rule of thumb:  Look around. Take your time. Determine which place has the most clients with butts in seats.  I did this in small rural villages in China fifteen years ago and never got sick.

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Antojitos Mexicanos Yucely was packed and people were waiting to take their place on a plastic stool and elbow up to the bar.  The daily two-course special — soup and entrée with two sides — was 40 pesos.  Add 10 pesos for a bottle of Coca Cola. The 50 pesos total equals about $4. USD in today’s exchange rate.

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I ordered a filet of huachinango (red snapper) battered in corn meal, crispy fried with a sweet, perfectly cooked center.  I asked for a side of the yummiest potatoes on the planet seasoned with oil, vinegar, onion and jalapeño peppers with just enough bite to make it interesting, plus perfectly steamed vegetable medley of squash, carrots, broccoli and cauliflower, and a taste of marinated, sautéed mushrooms.  I joined the multitudes with smiles on their faces.

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My camera makes for a great conversation piece and before long, people were asking me to take their photos, which I promised to send them via email or Facebook.  After lunch became a market portrait session.

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Ah, and did I mention that I’m a single woman traveler in Mexico City?  Walking everywhere by myself, even as night falls!