1 of 12   Diego Rivera Easel scale work provided Rivera with the freedom to explore and represent scenes from everyday life in Mexico without having to develop a tight didactic program. Painted the same year that Rivera began his mural program at Chapingo, La siesta represents a small interior space with four resting figures in pastel pink and brown tones. La siesta, 1926. Diego Rivera (Mexican). Oil on canvas: 21" x 29". Funds provided by Mrs. Vaughan B. Meyer and the Alice Kleberg Reynolds Meyer Foundation in memory of: Mr. and Mrs. Richard M. Kleberg, Sr., Mary Etta Kleberg Sugden, and Richard M. Kleberg, Jr.
	DIEGO RIVERA, 1886-1957 t age 10, Diego Rivera entered the San Carlos Academy where he received a classical education in drawing and painting. In 1907 he accepted a government scholarship to study in Spain and eventually settled in Paris, where he joined an avant-garde circle of intellectuals and artists. His associates included Mondrian, Chagall, and Picasso. Rivera returned to Mexico in 1921 and was given a special government post to plan and produce a series of public murals. He discarded his earlier avant-garde styles and committed himself to social realist art which he believed more readily communicated with the people. By combining his studies of Italian Renaissance murals, his modernist European training, and his research on pre-Columbian murals, he created a unique new form of Mexican expression. Rivera was a versatile and prolific artist and an avid collector of pre-Columbian and folk art. In addition to his enormous murals in government buildings in Mexico, he created murals at the California School of Fine Arts and at the Detroit Institute of Arts. He excelled at portraiture and painted popular folk culture in scenes of flower vendors, regional dances, and Day of the Dead festivities. Rivera created a strong and personal style that drew its inspiration from the life and culture of Mexico. He helped create the artistic foundations for Mexico as a modern nation.