Diego Rivera Quotes
To be an artist, one must . . . never shirk from the truth as he understands it, never withdraw from life
As an artist I have always tried to be faithful to my vision of life, and I have frequently been in conflict with those who wanted me to paint not what I saw but what they wished me to see.
Looking back upon my work today, I think the best I have done grew out of things deeply felt, the worst from a pride in mere talent.
July 13, 1954 was the most tragic day of my life. I had lost my beloved Frida forever. To late now I realized that the most wonderful part of my life had been my love for Frida.
If I ever loved a woman, the more I loved her, the more I wanted to hurt her. Frida was only the most obvious victim of this disgusting trait.
Through her paintings, she breaks all the taboos of the woman's body and of female sexuality.
The artist must try to raise the level of taste of the masses, not debase himself to the level of unformed and impoverished taste.
I did not know it then, but Frida had already become the most important fact in my life. And would continue to be, up to the moment she died, 27 years later.
Every good composition is above all a work of abstraction. All good painters know this. But the painter cannot dispense with subjects altogether without his work suffering impoverishment.
I knew how one climbing the mountain of worldly success can slip down into the river below without being conscious of the descent till he is already drowning.
Marx made theory... Lenin applied it with his sense of large-scale social organization... And Henry Ford made the work of the socialist state possible.