MURALS WITH A MESSAGE

 

Pan American Unity, a mural by Diego Rivera, has been moved across town from San Francisco City College to the Museum of Modern Art.  The MOMA became the depository of the mural while construction was going on at the college. This mural is not some small painting in a frame. It is painted on concrete panels and covers a wall in the museum that is 22 feet high by 74 feet wide and weighs over 60,000 pounds. Moving such a work of art from one place to another in the City must have been an incredible feat. Once the mural was installed, the museum created an exhibit that celebrates Rivera's artwork. We took a day to visit and strolled through the huge collection of his work contained in 16 galleries.

One section of Pan American Unity by Diego Rivera

Rivera painted three different murals in San Francisco during the 1930s and 1940s. Rivera was a political artist who filled his paintings and murals with workers, fellow artists, and political figures.  Pan American Unity represents his belief that Mexico, the United States, and Canada were equal in importance culturally and we all shared artistic and philosophical influences. His murals on public buildings inspired FDR's WPA program, which began in 1935 during the hardest years of the Great Depression and employed many artists including Thomas Hart Benton, Ida Adelman, and Rex Brandt, who all painted murals in schools and other government buildings across the country. San Francisco has its share of these WPA murals from the '30s including a series at Coit Tower, some at the Beach Chalet near Golden Gate Park, and in the Mother's House at the Zoo.

While we walked back through the back-alley streets from the MOMA, we discovered a new crop of murals that artists created during the pandemic. We saw examples of work on old brick buildings, concrete and wooden walls, and utility boxes. We delighted in the juxtaposition of large artwork in contrast to the concrete and glass of the skyscrapers around them.

To find out more about Diego Rivera and his murals:

https://www.sfmoma.org/exhibition/pan-american-unity/

Check out Forbes' article about how the mural was moved from one location to another.: https://www.forbes.com/sites/chaddscott/2022/01/03/diego-riveras-astonishing-pan-american-unity-mural-at-san-francisco-museum-of-modern-art/?sh=68ec57bf2203

The Living New Deal site offers information about WPA projects with 51 pages of projects for California:

https://livingnewdeal.org/us/ca/

FDR also signed the Social Security Act into law on August 14, 1935, during the Great Depression. Read Heather Cox Richardson's post about its significance:

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/august-13-2022?r=h82un&s=r&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email