Taschen releases most comprehensive study of Diego Rivera's work to date

Alongside his wife Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera is heralded as one of Mexico’s most important artists and a veritable folk hero in Latin America. His large-scale frescoes helped establish the Mexican mural movement and earned him invitations to create work all over the world.

Devoted to both art and communism, Rivera spent the 1910s in Europe immersed in the Cubist movement. It was this time spent surrounded by prolific artists such as Pablo Picasso that inspired him to return to Mexico and begin painting the large-scale murals for which he is most famous. These rich scenes addressed social and political issues relating to the working class, earning him an almost prophetic status among the peasants of Mexico.

In a recent monograph of the painter’s work, published by Taschen, some of Rivera’s most prominent and influential work is presented over 640-pages with nine foldouts. Part of Taschen’s XL series and with images presented as full-bleed double-page spreads, the publication allows the various components and subtleties of each mural to be closely examined.

In addition to the murals, Diego Rivera. The Complete Murals features a broad selection of paintings, vintage photos, documents, and drawings from public and private collections around the world, many of which “the whereabouts were previously unknown to scholars and whose inclusion here is thanks to the most intense research performed on Rivera’s work since his death,” states a recent press release.

A significant contributor to said research has been Luis-Martín Lozano, who alongside Rivera’s grandson Juan Rafael Coronal Rivera, produced this mammoth retrospective. As well as the vast array of visual material, The Complete Murals also includes an illustrated biography and a series of essays by prominent art historians offering interpretations of each mural.