Diego Rivera
chronology

Event

Jose Diego Rivera and his twin brother, Jose Carlos Rivera, are born in Guanajuato, Mexico, eldest sons of Diego Rivera and Maria del Pilar Barrientos.

Jose Carlos Rivera, Diego's twin dies.

Maria del Pilar, Diego's sister, is born in Guanajuato.

Diego's mother takes Diego and his sister, Maria, and moves to Mexico City. Diego Rivera Senior soon joins the family there.

Attends night classes at the San Carlos Academy of Fine Arts.

Attends full time day classes and graduates from San Carlos Academy.

Rivera exhibits for the first time, showing twenty-six works at the annual Exhibition of the San Carlos Academy. Diego, with his father's political connections, travels to Veracruz to visit Governor Dehesa, who grants him a scholarship which finances his travels and studies in Europe.

Arrives in Santander, Spain aboard the ship, Alfonso XIII, then travels by train to Madrid.

Travels throughout Spain, studies Old Masters: Goya, Velaquez, Brueghel, El Greco; paints canvases which are sent home to his Mexican patrons and sells his other works to Spanish art galleries.

Travels to Paris and beyond, touring throughout Belgium, studying Flemish Masters; then on to London. In Bruges, Belgium, he meets a Russian émigré artist, Angeline Beloff, who goes back to Paris with him and becomes his companion for the next ten years.

Exhibits six of his paintings at the Society of Independent Artists in Paris. Takes one of his paintings, House on the Bridge, off the wall and exhibits it in the Salon de la Societe des Artistes Francais, a juried show.

Sails home to Mexico to participate in President Porfirio Diaz's political Mexican Art Exhibition.

Diego arrives in Veracruz, Mexico, with armloads of canvases, greeted by his father and sister.

Exhibits thirty-five oils, two etchings and eight drawings in the San Carlos Academy Exhibit, a show mounted by Mexican artists, not Spanish, for the Porfirian centennial celebration. Witnesses the outbreak of the Mexican Revolution, that will last from 1910 to 1920.

Diego returns to Paris. In April, Angeline Beloff returns from Russia to meet him there. Angeline becomes his common-law wife and they move together to 52 avenue du Maine, Montparnasse. Enters two large canvases of Iztaccihuatl in the Salon d'Automne In the summer they travel to Normandy and in the winter they visit Barcelona. There he paints large canvases of the surrounding Catalonian mountains in his first modernistic style.

Meets Piet Mondrian who lives in the same building and who is beginning to paint his trees in the Cubist style. Rivera paints a watercolor, Trees, revealing the first Cubist influence in his work. In the spring, he and Angeline travel to Toledo, Spain, with the specific purpose to study El Greco. They live at 7 Calle del Angel that they use many times on their trips back and forth from Paris. He paints large canvases such as The Old Ones and View of Toledo. Exhibits two of his Catalonian paintings in the 1912 spring Salon. Moves with Angeline to 26 rue du Depart, Montparnasse, where they live for the next six years. Most other artists had also moved from Montmartre by this time, preferring to live on the more open avenues of Montparnasse.

Completely immersed in Cubism by the beginning of this year and paints in this genre for the next four and a half years. Meets and becomes a good friend of Modigliani, who paints three Rivera portraits.

In February, Mexican President-Elect Madero, is murdered, suddenly ending Rivera's government subsidy.

Picasso sends for Rivera to come to lunch at his home. Diego is not only captivated by Pablo but is even more intrigued by his large collection of Rousseau paintings. Picasso and Rivera become great friends and Cubist painting compatriots over the next four years.

First one-man exhibit at the Berthe Weill Gallery in April. In the summer, he and Angeline, with artist friends, embark on a walking tour of Spain. In Mallorca he is caught up in the outbreak of the First World War. He and Angeline sail to Barcelona, then take the train to Madrid, where they remain for almost a year.

In the summer, Diego returns to Paris alone, leaving Angeline in Madrid for two months.

He makes a contract with an art dealer, Leonce Rosenberg, to provide a quantity of paintings per month, to be paid according to subject and size. He now has the money to send for Angeline to travel back to Paris. While Angeline is away, he again meets Russian artist, Marevna Vorobyov-Stebelska, and she becomes his mistress. All Salons are closed due to the war so there are no exhibits in Paris.

Angeline becomes pregnant and they have a baby boy, Diego Junior, born in August.

Exhibits at the Modern Gallery, New York City.

Exhibits and sells his paintings through Rosenberg's gallery, the Galerie L'Effort Moderne, Paris.

He has a serious disagreement with Picasso and abandons Cubism forever and returns to naturalistic imagery.

In the winter, his son, Diego Junior, dies.

Moves with Angeline to the Champ-de-Mars. He is painting now under the influence of Rousseau and Cezanne.

Daughter, Marika, born in Paris to Marevna Vorobyov-Stebelska.

The new Mexican president, Alvaro Obregon, summons artists home to paint nationalistic murals.

Meets with David Alfaro Siqueiros and discusses his plans to drastically change the traditional French and Spanish art of Mexico.

Detours to Italy to study the artistic techniques of fresco paintings. Returns briefly to Paris to make plans to return to Mexico.

In June arrives back home in Mexico.

In December, begins his mural, Creation, in the Simon Bolivar Amphitheatre of the National Preparatory School.

Near the end of the year, his father, Diego Rivera Senior, dies.

Co-founds the Union of Revolutionary Painters, Sculptors, and Graphic Artists.

Becomes an official member of the Mexican Communist Party.

Meets and marries his first wife, Guadalupe Marin, in Catholic church.

Begins his greatest Mexican mural, consisting of 128 individual panels, in the Ministry of Education building. This mural becomes one of the most lasting triumphs of 20th Century art.

Daughter, Guadalupe, is born.

While still working on the Ministry of Education Cycle, begins painting a major cycle of frescos at the National School of Agriculture at Chapingo.

Daughter, Ruth, is born.

In the fall, invited to the Soviet Union to participate in the celebration of the Tenth Anniversary of the Russian October Revolution. In September, visits museums in Berlin then takes the train to Moscow. Lupe gets a divorce and Rivera stays in Soviet Union for eight months.