Dreaming with His Eyes Open: A Life of Diego Rivera (Discovery Series) [Paperback]

Patrick Marnham (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0520224086 | ISBN-13: 978-0520224087 | Publication Date: May 3, 2000 | Edition: 1

This engrossing biography of Diego Rivera, the brilliant Mexican artist and revolutionary, captures the explosively passionate nature that made Rivera one of the twentieth-century's most gifted and controversial painters.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

What confidence and ambition it requires to approach a biography of Diego Rivera, the larger-than-life Mexican muralist who in recent years has been reduced, in some circles, to being known as Frida Kahlo's evil husband. The myths and mysteries begin at his birth, in 1884. His mother seemed to die just after Diego, a firstborn twin, emerged, and her body was laid out for burial, until an old servant insisted she was still breathing. She recovered fully (Diego's twin died at age 2). This macabre event was but the first in a fabulously eventful life.

Under the brutal regime of the dictator Porfirio Díaz, whose legacy included human slavery on an unprecedented scale, Mexico City became "The Paris of the Americas," with imperial palaces, European music, and decorations by artists who had studied under Ingres. "It was in this exuberant, chaotic, and occasionally dangerous world that Diego Rivera grew up," writes Patrick Marnham, who casts a spell of such strangeness, beauty, and black humor that the reader is utterly hooked by the end of the first few pages. Marnham repeats and analyses all the fables Rivera spun about himself and his family; he describes Rivera's enchantment with Italian fresco cycles and his friendship and rivalry with Picasso in Montmartre in the 1920s; he reports Rivera's countless amorous conquests; and he presents the supposedly feminist view of Rivera as a monster of appetite, arrogance, and authority. Marnham also does an excellent job of picking apart the personal, political, and artistic threads of the disastrous brouhaha over Rivera's Rockefeller Center murals. In prose that is poetically rich and frequently tinged with not-so-gentle irony, he has written a thoroughly believable book about an all but unbelievable life. --Peggy Moorman --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly

From the salons of Europe before the Great War to the walls of post-revolutionary Mexico, Mexican muralist Diego Rivera (1886-1957) left behind a legacy that was larger than life in every way. Everything about the "bebe monstrueux," as Rivera was nicknamed by his mentor, the art critic Elie Faure, was huge: his size, his artistic output, the number of his mistresses and, as Marnham (The Man Who Wasn't Maigret: A Portrait of Georges Simenon) demonstrates, his capacity for self-invention. Retracing the steps of writers who've tackled Rivera's life and times before him, Marnham attempts to separate the facts from the fables surrounding the man. Throughout, he provides just enough context so that the backdrop against which Rivera lived his peripatetic, even swashbuckling life?the Spain of Alfonso XIII and the "free republic of Montparnasse," where, surrounded by such artists as Picasso and Modigliani, Rivera flirted with cubism before turning to large-scale, figurative tributes to socialism and Mexican history?assumes its proper proportion. Marnham's considerable research also permits him to demonstrate just how Rivera kept his political and commercial interests alive, at least until he matched wits with the developers of Manhattan's Rockefeller Center, who destroyed a mural they had commissioned because it included a portrait of Lenin. Especially helpful is his synopsis of the work of Faure, whose conviction that the future of art lay in a rebirth of the Italian fresco tradition of public art changed the painter's life. In recent years, Rivera has been somewhat overshadowed by the attention paid to one of his wives, artist Frida Kahlo. This thoroughly engrossing biography, which is the first on Rivera since Bertram Wolfe revised his seminal study in 1963, begins to redress the imbalance. Sixteen color and 32 b&w illustrations not seen by PW.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 350 pages
• Publisher: University of California Press; 1 edition (May 3, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0520224086
• ISBN-13: 978-0520224087
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #402,750 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The many loves of Rivera, June 6, 2002

By 

Enrique Torres "Rico" (San Diegotitlan, Califas) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Dreaming with His Eyes Open: A Life of Diego Rivera (Discovery Series) (Paperback)

With various books written on the life of Diego Rivera this one is a must have. Anytime a subject is studied, it this case the life of arguably the greatest Mexican muralist, it is worthwhile to have various perspectives before coming to one's own conclusion. In that regard this book is invaluable as the author doesn't give you a softball and is quick to point out the inconsistencies in other versions of the larger than life Diego Rivera's exploits, including his own autobiography. The book itself is a fascinating portrait into the life of the celebrated Mexican muralist's life, beginning with the unusual circumstnances of his youth, his sojourn to Europe and studying art in France, his mingling in the bohemian lfestyle with various artists and intellectuals of his era, including his at times not so friendly rivalry with Spanish artist Pablo Picasso, his return to Mexico, his politics(communist) and the troubles he had since he usually mixed art and politics, his many, many love affairs, his multiple marriages including several to soul mate Frida Kahlo, his association with Trotsky(and his wife), his work in the United States and his later years in Mexico where he remained productive in spite of failing health. It is all here, both the believable and the unbelieveable, meshing together for a fascinating look at a man that could literally charm the pants off of the most beautiful women of the world. Included are two seperate groups of pictures that include rarely seen vintage photographs and color prints of his most famous works. Every now and then I read a book that I want to savor and take my time. Like a special meal or an intimate moment, this book was one that I wanted to savor once I began. I wanted to make it last because it was so enjoyable, knowing that the inevitable consequence of my reading would make it end I almost regretted finishing the book. I took days to read the final chapters in the hope that somehow the experience would not end. I would highly recommend this book to those that are interested in Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, and Mexican art or history. It is a book that paints more than a picture, it is more like a grand mural that captures the fantastic life of Diego Rivera. This is a highly enjoyable book and an indispensable aid in understanding the complex makeup of one of the true giants of art in the twentieth century.

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best Biography of Rivera Around, January 10, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Dreaming with His Eyes Open: A Life of Diego Rivera (Hardcover)

There are an endless array of biographies of Diego Rivera, some are good, some are not so good. Some focus on just the life, or just the art, or just the politics. Patrick Marnham tackles every aspect of Rivera with amazing detail and accuracy. He addresses the myths and follows them up with actual fact. His writing shows great respect for the life of Diego Rivera without falling victim to the fables that plague so many other biographers. I use this as the standard by which to judge all other writing about Diego Rivera. You don't need all of the other books, just this one.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars excellent, thorough work on a complex and difficult subject., May 31, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Dreaming with His Eyes Open: A Life of Diego Rivera (Hardcover)

I am finding this an excellent complement to the recent (and also highly readable) biography of photgrapher Tina Modotti, who documented his murals. I've read other Marnham work and find his felicitous style eminently readable. His digressions always provide a useful context for the subject, and his research has been thorough.