Episode Details
Back to Episodes
Detroit on Trial: Diego Rivera's Murals That Shocked a City
Season 7
Episode 33
Published 1 week, 1 day ago
Description
Detroit, 1933. A world-famous artist. An automobile empire. Twenty-seven murals that would ignite one of the city's fiercest cultural controversies.
When Mexican artist Diego Rivera arrived in Detroit in 1932, he came to paint the industrial might of America's Motor City. Funded by Edsel Ford, president of Ford Motor Co., Rivera's ambitious commission would transform the Detroit Institute of Arts into a monument to machinery, manufacturing and the workers who powered an industrial revolution.
But Rivera was no ordinary artist.
A controversial communist whose paintings celebrated working people, Rivera found himself at the center of a bitter public dispute. Religious leaders condemned his imagery. Newspaper editorials attacked his work as un-American. One city councilman wanted the paintings washed from the museum walls.
Yet Edsel Ford stood behind the artist.In this episode of End of the Road in Michigan, we return to Depression-era Detroit to tell the extraordinary story behind Rivera's Detroit Industry Murals.
From the roaring assembly lines of Ford's River Rouge complex to the towering walls of the Detroit Institute of Arts, we examine how Rivera created his 27-panel masterpiece, why it sparked outrage and how it became one of Michigan's most important works of public art.It is a story of wealth and labor, artistic freedom and political conflict, and a city confronting the meaning of industrial progress.
More than 90 years later, Rivera's murals still ask a powerful question: Who deserves the credit for building Detroit?
Join us for another compelling chapter of Michigan history on End of the Road in Michigan,
The End of the Road in Michigan is a production of Thumbwind Publications
When Mexican artist Diego Rivera arrived in Detroit in 1932, he came to paint the industrial might of America's Motor City. Funded by Edsel Ford, president of Ford Motor Co., Rivera's ambitious commission would transform the Detroit Institute of Arts into a monument to machinery, manufacturing and the workers who powered an industrial revolution.
But Rivera was no ordinary artist.
A controversial communist whose paintings celebrated working people, Rivera found himself at the center of a bitter public dispute. Religious leaders condemned his imagery. Newspaper editorials attacked his work as un-American. One city councilman wanted the paintings washed from the museum walls.
Yet Edsel Ford stood behind the artist.In this episode of End of the Road in Michigan, we return to Depression-era Detroit to tell the extraordinary story behind Rivera's Detroit Industry Murals.
From the roaring assembly lines of Ford's River Rouge complex to the towering walls of the Detroit Institute of Arts, we examine how Rivera created his 27-panel masterpiece, why it sparked outrage and how it became one of Michigan's most important works of public art.It is a story of wealth and labor, artistic freedom and political conflict, and a city confronting the meaning of industrial progress.
More than 90 years later, Rivera's murals still ask a powerful question: Who deserves the credit for building Detroit?
Join us for another compelling chapter of Michigan history on End of the Road in Michigan,
The End of the Road in Michigan is a production of Thumbwind Publications