(‘Man at the Crossroads’ by Diego Rivera, 1933. Image courtesy of Moma.org)
Nelson Rockefeller and his family commissioned the Mexican muralist, Diego Rivera to paint “Man at a Crossroads,” which Rivera completed in 1933. The mural was to appear in the lobby of Rockefeller Center in New York. Nelson felt it was a communist painting, and refused to hang it. After much media controversy in New York, the mural was demolished. You can read about it here.
Interestingly, Rockefeller and Rivera remained friends.
This conflict is depicted in the 1999 film “Cradle Will Rock.”
‘Diego’ appeared in Eunoia Review in 2016.
Diego
The hammer song
that pounding of the mallets
in the forges and down the alleys
is indeed a form of music
a material melody played
to the tune of what we make
we too shall break
In a vulgar,
maybe even specious way
it is called mural making:
Diego, Diego
would you paint my portrait
will you place me inside
that jaguar suit
to repel Cortez’s son?
Today to grub means to eat
and roots come again
from real wood
I have seen your palette
of blood and iron
and received the one
and only call of revolution
The dispossessed
they cannot afford to go
and see your work
hanging in the galleries
so you tell Rockefeller
no, this cannot go there
The words of my acrylics
the streaks of my oils
will not be put to blandish
on the walls of some hall in Saratoga
-Jeremy Nathan Marks