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Detroit Industry Murals
History In the 1920s, the city of Detroit was generating a lot of wealth driven by the auto manufacturing industry. The Henry Ford Automobile company was the first to offer good paying benefits and wages to employees, resulting in a wave of people coming from all over the world trying to work at the Ford Automobile Facility. Its competitors Dodge, Chrysler, General Motors were in the beginning stages of the auto production. Detroit's ambitions were focused towards being one of the largest cities. Critics believed that Detroit would not only be known for its developing industry, but also for their world-famed art. The perfect man to carry out that mission was Dr. Wilhelm R. Valentiner, Director of Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA). Valentiner meets Mexican artist Diego Rivera at an event held in San Francisco, California. Rivera was intrigued by the rapid evolving industrial city in Detroit and expressed to Valentiner his desire to paint a set of murals representing this industrial life in America. Rivera’s dream was to one day, see his own murals in a city of America. Valentiner was a fond admirer of Rivera’s work.

Mural Proposal A few months later, Diego Rivera hears back from Valentiner and makes Rivera a proposal to come paint the murals at the DIA. In the beginning of the negotiation period, there was some back and forth resistance on behalf of the Arts Commission in allowing a communist painter to come paint at the city of Detroit. The intended plan was for Rivera to paint only two large murals but Rivera needed more room to express his theme. The Arts Commission's request was for Rivera to paint a theme, representative of the city of Detroit industrial development, but in the end, they allowed Rivera to paint at his discretion. Rivera was thrilled to work on this project. In Rivera’s own words:

The Industries of Detroit-metallurgy, industrial and biological chemistry, and the mechanics of the automobile-were precisely those which most suited my taste as subjects for painting, and I accepted the proposal with great enthusiasm.

Commission The frescoes were commissioned by President of the Arts Commission, Edsel B. Ford, a gift to the city of Detroit. Edsel B. Ford and Wilhelm R. Valentiner were great friends. The Arts Commission was not enthusiastic over Rivera’s Mexican communism, at first. After much negotiations regarding the costs of the murals, the DIA agrees to pay Rivera $20,889 dollars. DIA and Rivera come to a mutual agreement, the DIA provides Rivera the painting supplies for the murals and Rivera agrees to pay for the assistants he may need to paint the murals.

Garden Couryard The Detroit Murals Frescoes consisted of twenty-seven panels painted along the four walls of the central garden courtyard of the Detroit’s Institute of Arts. Rivera was accompanied by his wife, Frida Kahlo throughout the entire year he painted these murals. The frescoes were painted between July 25, 1932 and March 13, 1933. Rivera spent a great amount of days in automobile factories observing the workers and industrial plants making infinite amount of sketches prior to painting the murals. At times, Rivera had photographers follow him to take pictures and use them as reference. Though, Rivera relied solely on his memory when it came to painting. He observed workers at the Ford River Rouge Complex work from the Raw materials to the Rivera spent roughly ten months in completing the frescos.

Controversies Rivera's twenty-seven panels representing a series of dualities in his murals namely, philosophical left-right views. For some individuals these paintings were "too" realistic of the day-to-day operation of the working class. Critic reactions were also heard from elegant club women and religious preachers protesting to undo Rivera's work, claiming the paintings were whitewashed and un-American. Rivera's paintings portrayed a transparency of the working class struggle and the importance of the class coming to understand this struggle for a future classless society. Those individuals representing the forces of resistance disagreed with his frescoes.

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