My Art, My Life

by Diego Rivera

  The tune was very pretty. My daughters Lupe and Ruth sang it to us as a duet, accompanying themselves with maracas, on the night after Emma and I came home.

  One of my greatest excitements now is seeing my newest grandson, Ruth’s baby. Ruth calls him Zopito, meaning “Little Frog,” because he is fat like me, whom she calls Zoporana, “Big Frog.” It’s funny that people I love most think I look like a frog, because the city of Guanajuato where I was born means “Many Singing Frogs in Water.” I am certainly not a singing frog, though I do burst forth on rare happy occasions into a song.

  So now I am home again. With the rest and the superior medical treatment I received in Russia, I should live ten years more. Right now my fingers and I are literally itching to start work on my next mural.

  [The Last session of dictation took place in the summer of 1956. In the summer of 1957, Diego Rivera went over and approved the first draft of the manuscript. The finished manuscript was read and approved by Emma Hurtado Rivera.—G. M.]

  APPENDIX

  STATEMENT BY ANGELINE BELLOFF

  IT IS TRUE that because of Diego I suffered very much for many years, yet I have never once regretted those ten years we lived together. When Diego first met me, I had just come to France from my home in Russia to study painting.

  At that time, I was exceedingly depressed and lonely and afraid. My parents had recently died, and I was all alone in a strange country. Diego was very kind to me then.

  It was in 1910 that we first met and fell in love. When, soon after, Diego proposed that we set up housekeeping together, I was fearful; I thought him much too exotic for me. I told him that he should first return to his home in Mexico for one year and then come back to me in Paris. If we found that we still loved each other then, I would gladly accept his proposal.

  Diego returned to me as agreed, in 1911. He greeted me with two gold wedding rings sent by his mother. There was never any doubt in my mind, when I accepted my ring, that I would love Diego for the rest of my life. I still wear my ring. You see, it says on it, “D.M.R. to A.B.” Of course, we never had a legal marriage ceremony. I guess neither of us thought that necessary.

  We lived together as man and wife, and Diego made me ecstatically happy. We made wonderful companions for each other. We traveled through all of Europe together, observing, painting, and loving.

  Diego took me to all the art museums and explained everything he had learned about art with infinite patience. He loved me very much in those early years.

  His father sent me many warm, tender letters, addressing me as “daughter.” In fact, both of his parents continually extended cordial invitations for me to visit Mexico. I have always treasured in my memory how perpetually thrilling life in Paris was at the beginning.

  Diego introduced me to all his artist friends, including Matisse and Picasso. He even arranged for Matisse to give me art lessons.

  When I became pregnant, Diego began to broach the subject of having our marriage legalized. Yet he would also shout and threaten that if the child cried and disturbed him, he would toss it right out the window. He would say that if the child grew up to be anything like me, he would really cry with grief and disappointment.

  All in all, Diego was very annoyed at having to play the role of a father. He insisted that the baby would deprive him of his peace and that besides, we couldn’t afford to support another mouth. But then Diego always became maniacal whenever he felt that his work was in danger of being interrupted. He carried on in the same childish manner when he heard that his mother was coming from Mexico just to visit him in Paris.

  In one of his periodic tantrums, Diego even threatened to kill himself if she showed up; he said he had no time to devote to her.

  Diego has always seemed to do everything unconventionally, to provide himself with more stimulation to paint. He likes to dramatize pain and tragedy, as if he thrives on the emotional delights he experiences from them.

  Years later, I realized that I never offered him enough excitement of this kind. I was too agreeable and placid and did not like to manufacture or play up nerve-wracking crises.

  After our son was born, Diego had an adventure with the Russian painter Marievna. He left our apartment and went to live with her for five months. When he finally returned home to me, I was too weak-spirited to ask him to leave. Besides, I loved him so terribly I was willing to take him back under any circumstances. But the one thing I have always held against Diego is the way he acted when our one-and-a-half-year-old baby lay sick and dying. From the beginning of the child’s illness, Diego would stay away from the house for days at a time, cavorting with his friends in the cafés.

  He kept up this infantile routine even during the last three days and nights of our baby’s life. Diego knew that I was keeping a constant vigil over the baby in a last desperate effort to save its life; still he didn’t come home at all. When the child finally died, Diego, naturally, was the one to have the nervous collapse.

  When Diego returned to Mexico for good in 1921, I was obliged to remain behind in Paris. He didn’t have enough money for both our fares, so he went alone, promising to send for me soon. Five months later, he did send a cable for me to come to Mexico, but no money. Since I hadn’t any myself, I couldn’t go. After that, I didn’t hear from him again.

  I started working, supporting myself by painting for commercial books and magazines.

  In 1932, I came to Mexico because I had many friends who told me how beautiful the country was. I did not come to see Diego. In fact, I have seen him only a few times in all the years I have been residing here, and those meetings were accidental.

  I have earned my living in Mexico by teaching art to high-school students as well as to private pupils.

  I never much cared for the company of Diego’s other wives, Lupe Marín and Frida, as we had nothing really in common. I have, however, maintained a friendship with Diego’s younger sister, María. It was María who remarked that, of all Diego’s wives, I was the most unique and loved him most truly, since I loved him when he was poor and obscure.

  Given the opportunity to live my life over again, I would still choose to spend those same ten years with Diego, despite all the pain I suffered afterwards, because those years were by far the most intense and happy of my whole life.

  In this reminiscence of my life with Diego, I do not mean to say anything derogatory about him. He has never been a vicious man, but simply an amoral one. His painting is all he has ever lived for and deeply loved. And to his art, he has given the fidelity he could never find within him to give to a woman.

  STATEMENT BY LUPE MARÍN

  WHEN I FIRST MET DIEGO, I thought he was very ugly. Nevertheless, I fell very much in love with him at that first meeting. I think he fell in love with me then, too. Despite what everyone has said in the past, when Diego was living with me, he had no other woman. As a husband, he was wonderful, always being muy hombre.

  During the time we were married, we were quite poor, and many times we did not have enough to eat. Whatever money Diego made, he spent on his idols or donated to the C.P. He never thought of any practical ways to spend his money. Such prosaic things as food, clothing, or the rent were his last considerations.

  It seems that my whole life was centered around Diego then. I accompanied him to the buildings where he was painting and remained at his side through all the day. I left him only to prepare his hot lunches, which I served to him on the scaffold.

  During the seven years of our marriage, we had many arguments. The more furious and violent I became, the more Diego laughed and ignored me. After our girls were born, he gave me very little money to support them; otherwise, he was a good papa.

  I think that the nudes Diego did of me are excellent, but I feel that they are independent of me, that each has its own personal identity. Of course, I believe that next to Picasso, Diego is the greatest contemporary painter in the world.

  After Diego left me, I had an unfortunate marriage which lasted three years
and have not remarried since. I had been tied down for so long to Diego, and then Cuesta, that I came to value my freedom more than any possible new husband. Besides, after those two marriages, I completely lost the faculty to love. That deficiency is still in me.

  Since my marriages, I have earned my living as a writer, sewing teacher, and high-fashion designer. I have written two books, in parts of which I described my marriages, using fictitious names, naturally.

  By the time Diego married Frida, my initial deep hurt had worn off, and I even attended the wedding. It has been written about me that Diego and I were separated once because I found him making love to my sister. That is not true; it was Frida’s sister he made love to, and that’s why Frida left him once, too. The real reason we parted was that he carried on so flagrantly with the model Tina Modotti. I couldn’t stand that! I was beyond being angry. I felt deeply injured and deceived.

  Diego has always paid much attention to women throughout his life, but he has always been respectful toward them. However, I don’t believe for a minute that he likes any of them for themselves, for if he did, he would be faithful to them. One thing Diego truly likes about women is the money they can give him, since the majority of his mistresses have been women of great wealth. It is my opinion that they flock around him so because his fame, not he himself, is so interesting.

  But I still love Diego, both as a friend and as the father of my children. My older daughter, Lupe, while not being exactly like either of us, has some of the characteristics of Diego. I am violent-tempered, but Lupe is more easygoing, like Diego. Ruth is closer to possessing all of the qualities of her father’s temperament.

  Over the years Diego has not changed much, except in one respect. As he has gotten older, he has gradually become cleaner. He hardly ever bathed when we lived together, but he bathes every day now because he knows that women hate a dirty man, and an old man has to be much more fastidious than a young one.

  In this respect he has begun to resemble a gentleman.

  STATEMENT BY FRIDA KAHLO

  (Frida was ill and already near death when I met with her. Aside from a few interesting observations about Rivera, which are included at the end of her statement here, I found the notes of my interview with her less satisfactory than an article she had prepared earlier, in connection with the half-century exhibition of Rivera’s work by the Fine Arts Institute of Mexico City. The article, brought to my attention by Rivera himself, was published by the Institute in a souvenir book, and is reproduced with permission of the Institute.—G.M.)

  I WARN YOU that in this picture I am painting of Diego there will be colors which even I am not fully acquainted with. Besides, I love Diego so much I cannot be an objective spectator of him or his life. . . . I cannot speak of Diego as my husband because that term, when applied to him, is an absurdity. He never has been, nor will he ever be, anybody’s husband. I also cannot speak of him as my lover because to me, he transcends by far the domain of sex. And if I attempt to speak of him purely, as a soul, I shall only end up by painting my own emotions. Yet considering these obstacles of sentiment, I shall try to sketch his image to the best of my ability.

  Growing up from his Asiatic-type head is his fine, thin hair, which somehow gives the impression that it is floating in air. He looks like an immense baby with an amiable but sad-looking face. His wide, dark, and intelligent bulging eyes appear to be barely held in place by his swollen eyelids. They protrude like the eyes of a frog, each separated from the other in a most extraordinary way. They thus seem to enlarge his field of vision beyond that of most persons. It is almost as if they were constructed exclusively for a painter of vast spaces and multitudes. The effect produced by these unusual eyes, situated so far away from each other, encourages one to speculate on the ages-old oriental knowledge contained behind them.

  On rare occasions, an ironic yet tender smile appears on his Buddha-like lips. Seeing him in the nude, one is immediately reminded of a young boy-frog standing on his hind legs. His skin is greenish-white, very like that of an aquatic animal. The only dark parts of his whole body are his hands and face, and that is because they are sunburned. His shoulders are like a child’s, narrow and round. They progress without any visible hint of angles, their tapering rotundity making them seem almost feminine. The arms diminish regularly into small, sensitive hands. . . . It is incredible to think that these hands have been capable of achieving such a prodigious number of paintings. Another wonder is that they can still work as indefatigably as they do.

  Diego’s chest—of it we have to say, that had he landed on an island governed by Sappho, where male invaders were apt to be executed, Diego would never have been in danger. The sensitivity of his marvelous breasts would have insured his welcome, although his masculine virility, specific and strange, would have made him equally desired in the lands of these queens avidly hungering for masculine love.

  His enormous belly, smooth, tightly drawn, and sphere-shaped, is supported by two strong legs which are as beautifully solid as classical columns. They end in feet which point outward at an obtuse angle, as if moulded for a stance wide enough to cover the entire earth.

  He sleeps in a foetal position. In his waking hours, he walks with a languorous elegance as if accustomed to living in a liquefied medium. By his movements, one would think that he found air denser to wade through than water.

  I suppose everyone expects me to give a very feminine report about him, full of derogatory gossip and indecent revelations. Perhaps it is expected that I should lament about how I have suffered living with a man like Diego. But I do not think that the banks of a river suffer because they let the river flow, nor does the earth suffer because of the rains, nor does the atom suffer for letting its energy escape. To my way of thinking, everything has its natural compensation.

  To Diego painting is everything. He prefers his work to anything else in the world. It is his vocation and his vacation in one. For as long as I have known him, he has spent most of his waking hours at painting: between twelve and eighteen a day.

  Therefore he cannot lead a normal life. Nor does he ever have the time to think whether what he does is moral, amoral, or immoral.

  He has only one great social concern: to raise the standard of living of the Mexican Indians, whom he loves so deeply. This love he has conveyed in painting after painting.

  His temperament is invariably a happy one. He is irritated by only two things: loss of time from his work—and stupidity. He has said many times that he would rather have many intelligent enemies than one stupid friend.

  STATEMENT BY EMMA HURTADO

  I HAVE KNOWN DIEGO for twelve years, in the last two of which I have been his wife.

  I married Diego when he was very sick with cancer, just shortly before we went to Russia for him to be treated. At that time I had no idea whether he would live or die.

  Upon our arrival, Diego was hospitalized from September, 1955, until the end of January, 1956, practically all of which time he was in bed.

  I was at the hospital with him every day from eight in the morning until eight at night. It was an exceptional arrangement, which the hospital permitted because we had traveled from so far away.

  I lived in a hotel near the hospital. It was not easy to be all alone in a foreign country, and with no knowledge of the language, especially in this terrible situation. There was the continually nerve-wracking task of dealing with the newspaper people, all of whom seemed to be momentarily expecting some dramatic announcement. One reporter, more impatient than the rest, wrote that Diego and I were being held prisoner by the government. How he could have reached such a conclusion I cannot imagine, for all during our stay we received nothing but attention and courtesy.

  Diego was an extraordinarily good patient. He made no objection to anything the nurses or doctors suggested. At the beginning, he sketched everything around him: patients, doctors, nurses, and apparatus. He always kept a sketch book and pencil beside his bed. After he had received many cobalt treatme
nts, however, he became very weak, so weak in fact, that he couldn’t draw a single line.

  This made him despondent, and considering it a bad sign, the doctors arranged to move him to a hotel room where he could view the November 7th parade in Red Square. The parade excited him so, that he moved away from his chair and started making sketches. I was relieved to see this change of spirit, as were his doctors.

  By January, he was well again and painting furiously and with much gusto. Within the next six months, he completed over four hundred pieces of work in Russia, Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Poland, where we traveled briefly before flying home. After arriving in Mexico, we went to Acapulco, where he did many marvelous oils, water colors, and sketches.

  We had an exhibition of all this work, here in Mexico, in November, 1956. The show was such a success that practically every piece was sold.

  As a husband, Diego has always been very good to me, even the times when he was sick and uncomfortable. Of course he still has many other women friends. But for a man like Diego, that is necessary; he needs to feel many different kinds of emotions in order to be able to paint as he does. And yet, I must say, it is the women who are always chasing after him, not he after them. He is always polite and attentive to them; they respond to his chivalry; and before he is fully aware of it, he is already involved.

  The more he lives the greater grows the desire of collectors to buy his paintings. It is no longer a question of what he says or does, or what the world thinks of him. He is already a classic. And his greatness insures him against everything.