In this frenetic, rumbustious new graphic biography of Diego Rivera by Francisco de la Mora and José Luis Pescador, the Mexican artist’s third wife (and fourth: they married twice) appears only fleetingly. We don’t find out where or how they met; the powerful connection between them, never fully explained, must simply be taken for granted by the reader. But perhaps the authors feel that Frida Kahlo has had a bit too much attention just lately: who could forget the snaking queues at the V&A’s show of her work in 2018? In their book, then, it’s Rivera who is centre stage. Like a raging bull, rushing into the ring for a fight, he dominates every page, all bristling melodrama and animal energy.
“There have been two great accidents in my life,” Kahlo said. “Diego was by far the worst.” There is surely hyperbole in this statement, however unhappy Rivera made her at times (both of them were repeatedly unfaithful). But you grasp her meaning: the sense of collision that accompanied her husband wherever he went. Though his talent was prodigious – he went to art school at 11 – it often struggled to find its place in a life that was by any standards overpopulated with incident. Born in 1886, Rivera was the son of a journalist who was involved in revolutionary politics, instincts he would famously go on to share. Travelling in Europe, he met Lenin in Paris and Stalin in Moscow; later, he offered refuge to Trotsky during his Mexican exile. But revolutionaries come in many guises. If he talked the talk – even after fame arrived, he remained proudly un-clubbable – he was also easily distracted, usually (though not exclusively) by women.
