Cultural significance
What poem was inspired by the Rockefeller-Rivera dispute?
Man at the Crossroads
Man at the Crossroads Bernarda Bryson Shahn Diego Rivera Ben Shahn Nelson Rockefeller
Man_at_the_Crossroads-Cultural_significance Bernarda_Bryson_Shahn-Abstract Diego_Rivera-Later_years Ben_Shahn-Work_during_the_Great_Depression Nelson_Rockefeller-Art_patronage
The Rockefeller-Rivera dispute has become an emblem of the relationship of politics, aesthetics, creative freedom and economic power. The American poet Archibald MacLeish's 1933 collection "Frescoes for Mr. Rockefeller's City" was inspired by the incident. It included six "irony-laden" poems about the mural in which both Rockefeller and Rivera were criticised. "The New Yorker" magazine published E. B. White's poem "I paint what I see: A ballad of artistic integrity" on May 20, 1933, an imaginary debate between Rockefeller and Rivera. It has been discussed or dramatized in a number of films dealing with the politics of art. The events are dramatized in the American films "Cradle Will Rock" and "Frida", both set in the 1930s. In "Cradle Will Rock", the painting we see is identical to the Mexican version. When it is smashed, only the fragment of plaster containing the depiction of syphilis remains. It is also discussed in the Tamil film "Anbe Sivam", in which an Indian Communist argues with a supporter of the capitalist system.
Bernarda Bryson Shahn (March 9, 1903 – December 13, 2004) was an American painter and lithographer. She also wrote and illustrated children's books including "The Zoo of Zeus" and "Gilgamesh." She was the wife of renowned artist Ben Shahn. She met her future husband during a trip to New York in 1932 she took to interview Diego Rivera, whom Shahn was assisting in the production of his Rockefeller Center murals. Both of them worked for the Depression-era Resettlement Administration, later part of the Farm Security Administration. In 1939, they produced a set of 13 murals inspired by Walt Whitman's poem "I See America Working" and installed at the United States Post Office-Bronx Central Annex. She continued painting throughout her life, and hosted gallery exhibits from the time her husband died in 1969, to well in her 90s. She died at her home in Roosevelt, New Jersey at the age of 101. 
In the autumn of 1927, Rivera arrived in Moscow, accepting an invitation to take part in the celebration of the 10th anniversary of the October Revolution. The following year, while still in Russia, he met the visiting Alfred H. Barr, Jr., who would soon become Rivera's friend and patron, as well as the founding director of the Museum of Modern Art. Rivera was commissioned to paint a mural for the Red Army Club in Moscow, but in 1928 he was ordered out by the authorities because of involvement in anti-Soviet politics, and he returned to Mexico. In 1929, Rivera was expelled from the Mexican Communist Party. His 1928 mural "In the Arsenal" was interpreted by some as evidence of Rivera's prior knowledge of the murder of Julio Antonio Mella allegedly by Stalinist assassin Vittorio Vidali. After divorcing Guadalupe (Lupe) Marin, Rivera married Frida Kahlo in August 1929. Also in 1929, the first English-language book on Rivera, American journalist Ernestine Evans's "The Frescoes of Diego Rivera", was published in New York. In December, Rivera accepted a commission to paint murals in the Palace of Cortés in Cuernavaca from the American Ambassador to Mexico. In September 1930, Rivera accepted an invitation from architect Timothy L. Pflueger to paint for him in San Francisco. After arriving in November accompanied by Kahlo, Rivera painted a mural for the City Club of the San Francisco Stock Exchange for US$2,500 and a fresco for the California School of Fine Art, later relocated to what is now the Diego Rivera Gallery at the San Francisco Art Institute. Kahlo and Rivera worked and lived at the studio of Ralph Stackpole, who had suggested Rivera to Pflueger. Rivera met Helen Wills Moody, a famous tennis player, who modeled for his City Club mural. In November 1931, Rivera had a retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City; Kahlo was present. Between 1932 and 1933, he completed a famous series of twenty-seven fresco panels entitled "Detroit Industry" on the walls of an inner court at the Detroit Institute of Arts. During the McCarthyism of the 1950s, a was placed in the courtyard defending the artistic merit of the murals while attacking his politics as "detestable. "His mural "Man at the Crossroads", begun in 1933 for the Rockefeller Center in New York City, was removed after a furor erupted in the press over a portrait of Vladimir Lenin it contained. When Diego refused to remove Lenin from the painting, Diego was ordered to leave. One of Diego's assistants managed to take a few pictures of the work so Diego was able to later recreate it. The American poet Archibald MacLeish wrote six "irony-laden" poems about the mural. "The New Yorker" magazine published E. B. White's poem "I paint what I see: A ballad of artistic integrity". As a result of the negative publicity, a further commission was canceled to paint a mural for an exhibition at the Chicago World's Fair. Rivera issued a statement that with the money left over from the commission of the mural at Rockefeller Center (he was paid in full though the mural was supposedly destroyed. Rumors have floated that the mural was actually covered over rather than brought down and destroyed. ), he would repaint the same mural over and over wherever he was asked until the money ran out. In December 1933, Rivera returned to Mexico, and he repainted "Man at the Crossroads" in 1934 in the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City. This surviving version was called "Man, Controller of the Universe". On June 5, 1940, invited again by Pflueger, Rivera returned for the last time to the United States to paint a ten-panel mural for the Golden Gate International Exposition in San Francisco. "Pan American Unity" was completed November 29, 1940. As he was painting, Rivera was on display in front of Exposition attendees. He received US$1,000 per month and US$1,000 for travel expenses. The mural includes representations of two of Pflueger's architectural works as well as portraits of Kahlo, woodcarver Dudley C. Carter, and actress Paulette Goddard, who is depicted holding Rivera's hand as they plant a white tree together. Rivera's assistants on the mural included the pioneer African-American artist, dancer, and textile designer Thelma Johnson Streat. The mural and its archives reside at City College of San Francisco. 
Shahn's subsequent series of California labor leader Tom Mooney won him the recognition of Diego Rivera. In May and June 1933, he served as an assistant to Diego Rivera while Rivera executed the infamous Rockefeller Center mural. Shahn had a role in fanning the controversy, by circulating a petition among the workers. Also during this period, Shahn met photojournalist Bernarda Bryson, who would later become his second wife. Although this marriage was successful, the mural, his 1934 project for the Public Works of Art Projects and proposal for the Municipal Art Commission were all failures. Fortunately, in 1935, Shahn was recommended by Walker Evans, a friend and former roommate, to Roy Stryker to join the photographic group at the Farm Security Administration (FSA). As a member of the FSA group, Shahn roamed and documented the American south together with his colleagues Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange. Like his earlier photography of New York City, Shahn’s FSA work can be viewed as social-documentary. Similarly, Shahn’s New Deal art for the FSA and Resettlement Agency exposed American living and working conditions. He also worked for these agencies as a graphic artist and painter. Shahn’s fresco mural for the community center of Jersey Homesteads is among his most famous works, but the government also hired Shahn to execute the Bronx Central Annex Post Office and Social Security murals. In 1939, Shahn and his wife produced a set of 13 murals inspired by Walt Whitman's poem "I See America Working" and installed at the United States Post Office-Bronx Central Annex. Curator Susan Edwards recognizes the influence of this art on the public consciousness, writing, "The Roosevelt administration believed images were useful for persuading not only voters but members of Congress to support federal relief and recovery programs… The art he made for the federal government affirms both his own legacy and that of the New Deal."
Rockefeller served as a trustee of the Museum of Modern Art from 1932 to 1979. He also served as treasurer, 1935–1939, and president, 1939–1941 and 1946–1953. In 1933 Rockefeller was a member of the committee selecting art for the new Rockefeller Center. For the wall opposite the main entrance of 30 Rockefeller Plaza Nelson Rockefeller wanted Henri Matisse or Pablo Picasso to paint a mural because he favored their modern style, but neither was available. Diego Rivera was one of Nelson Rockefeller's mother's favorite artists and therefore was commissioned to create the huge mural. He was given a theme: New Frontiers. Rockefeller wanted the painting to make people pause and think. Rivera submitted a sketch for a mural entitled "Man at the Crossroads Looking with Hope and High Vision to the Choosing of a New and Better Future." The sketch featured an anonymous man at the center. However, when it was painted the work caused great controversy due to the inclusion of a painting of Lenin (depicting communism) just off-center. The Directors of Rockefeller Center objected and Rockefeller asked Rivera to change the face of Lenin to that of an unknown laborer's face as was originally intended, but the painter refused. The work was paid for on May 22, 1933, and immediately draped. Rockefeller suggested that the fresco could be donated to the Museum of Modern Art, but the trustees of the museum were not interested. People protested but it remained covered until the early weeks of 1934, when it was smashed by workers and hauled away in wheelbarrows. Rivera responded by saying that it was "cultural vandalism". At Rockefeller Center in its place is a mural by Jose Maria Sert which includes an image of Abraham Lincoln. The Rockefeller-Rivera dispute is covered in the films "Cradle Will Rock" and "Frida". Rockefeller was a noted collector of both modern and non-Western art. During his governorship, New York State acquired major works of art for the new Empire State Plaza in Albany. He continued his mother's work at the Museum of Modern Art as president, and turned the basement of his Kykuit mansion into a gallery while placing works of sculpture around the grounds (an activity he enjoyed personally supervising, frequently moving the pieces from place to place by helicopter). While he was overseeing construction of the State University of New York system, Rockefeller built, in collaboration with his lifelong friend Roy Neuberger, the Neuberger Museum on the campus of SUNY Purchase College, designed by Philip Johnson. He commissioned Master Santiago Martínez Delgado to make a canvas mural for the Bank of New York (City Bank) in Bogotá, Colombia; this ended up being the last work of the artist, as he died while finishing it. Rockefeller's early visits to Mexico kindled a collecting interest in pre-Columbian and contemporary Mexican art, to which he added works of traditional African and Pacific Island art. In 1954 he established the Museum of Primitive Art devoted to the indigenous art of the Americas, Africa, Oceania and early Asia and Europe. His personal collection formed the core of the collection. The museum opened to the public in 1957 in a townhouse on West 54th Street in New York City. In 1969 he gave the museum's collection to the Metropolitan Museum of Art where it became the Michael C. Rockefeller Collection. In 1978, Alfred A. Knopf published a book on primitive art from Rockefeller's collection. Rockefeller, impressed with the work of photographer Lee Boltin and editor/publisher Paul Anbinder on the book, co-founded Nelson Rockefeller Publications, Inc. with them, with the goal of publishing fine art books of high quality. After Rockefeller's death less than a year later, the company continued as Hudson Hills Press, Inc. In 1977 he founded Nelson Rockefeller Collection, Inc., (NRC) an art reproduction company that produced and sold licensed reproductions of selected works from Rockefeller's collection. In the introduction to the NRC catalog he stated he was motivated by his desire to share with others "the joy of living with these beautiful objects."