Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo at Detroit Institute of Art

June 10, 2015

Day 64

We said our goodbyes to our Canadian friends and we went into Detroit again and went to the Detroit Institute of Art. It is a very fine art museum that currently has the Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo in Michigan exhibit. Rivera was invited to Detroit by Ebsen Ford in 1932 to paint murals in the Detroit Institute of Art. Rivera was torn by his beliefs in communism and being commissioned by a wealthy American business owner. He resolved this apparent conflict of interest by representing the common worker and the importance of the labor force in his murals. The current exhibit had many works by Rivera and Kahlo, some done during this time period, some earlier, and some after their return to Mexico. It showed the process of designing the murals, first by visiting the factories, doing drawings and then eventually painting the murals in the room of the Art Institute. Kahlo suffered the loss of their only pregnancy while she was in Detroit. She mourned greatly after that time and was quite unhappy in Detroit, longing for Mexico and her people. The showed how she matured as an artist, from being “Rivera's wife” to a painter all her own. The exhibit was very well done and well attended but not so crowded that you felt uncomfortable. After the special exhibit we went to see the mural room which is fantastic. Photos were only allowed there and not in the special exhibit.

A van Gogh painting at DIA

 We also saw some van Gogh's and Picasso's. We ate lunch at a great little diner and then hit the road for Cleveland. We arrived at our hosts home in Westlake which is a western suburb of Cleveland. We had dinner out with Wally and Joan and then they drove us into Cleveland for a tour of the city, how to get to the stadium, the highlights and then back along Lake Erie and the section with all the mansions. It was a great tour! Thank you Wally and Joan.