Diego Rivera was the Mexican artist who painted Man at the Crossroads and married Frida Kahlo.
Rivera and Kahlo first married in 1929. Their relationship became one of the best-known partnerships in twentieth-century art, marked by shared political interests, public attention, infidelity, divorce, and remarriage. They divorced in 1939 and remarried in 1940 in San Francisco.
Rivera was a leading figure in the Mexican mural movement. His large public murals often depicted workers, historical events, industry, and revolutionary politics. Man at the Crossroads was commissioned for Rockefeller Center in New York, but the mural was destroyed in 1934 after Rivera refused to remove a portrait of Vladimir Lenin.
Rivera was more than Kahlo’s husband: he was an established muralist who supported her early artistic development. Kahlo nevertheless developed a distinct style centered on self-portraiture, bodily experience, Mexican identity, and symbolism.