Diego Rivera's mural Man at the Crossroads was destroyed in February 1934, after he refused to paint out the portrait of Lenin that Rockefeller Center wanted gone. Rockefeller Center paid the painter in full in May 1933, hid the unfinished fresco behind canvas, and months later had workmen break it off the wall at night.
Rivera began the mural in March 1933 on the main wall of the lobby of the RCA Building, the tallest tower of Rockefeller Center in midtown Manhattan. A fresco is painted into wet plaster, which is why this one could only be removed by breaking the wall. The original no longer exists. What survives is the second version Rivera painted in Mexico City.
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Nelson Rockefeller never asked for the mural to be destroyed. He was the son of the man who owned the building, and in May 1933, after a visit to the lobby, he wrote to Rivera that the piece was "beautifully painted." He had a single request. The portrait of Lenin, which Rivera had just added to the wall, should be replaced by the face of "some unknown man."
Yet nine months later, one night in February 1934, workmen took the mural off the wall. A family that praises a painting does not usually smash it, and a family that wants it gone does not usually wait that long.
Why did the Rockefellers hire Diego Rivera?
Because Abby Rockefeller, who had helped found the Museum of Modern Art, pushed for him, and because the painters the family wanted first turned them down or never answered. Her son Nelson, then twenty-four, had hoped for Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso. Matisse was busy with a commission for the Barnes Foundation, an art collection near Philadelphia. A telegram addressed to "Pierre Picasso" went unanswered.
Diego Rivera arrived with credentials. The Museum of Modern Art had just given him a one-man show, and Abby Rockefeller had hosted the luncheon in January 1932 where the idea of a lobby mural first came up. The center's contractors drew up a contest with strict rules, among them black and white only. Rivera agreed to take the job after Nelson persuaded him, and the rules were relaxed to allow color.
John D. Rockefeller Jr., the father, whose money was building the center, gave his reluctant approval. In a letter, the father wrote that Rivera "seems to have become very popular just now." In November 1932 Rivera showed Abby Rockefeller his sketch, and the contract that followed, for $21,000, made that sketch the final plan.
The theme was the patrons' own: "Man at the Crossroads Looking with Hope and High Vision to the Choosing of a New and Better Future." Under that title Rivera set capitalism on one side of the wall and socialism on the other. The title never said which future.
What You'll Discover
What the two letters said.
The evening Rivera lost his scaffold.
What was found in the drums.
What Rivera added the second time.