Diego Rivera as a Jewish Root-Seeker: Art, Identity Politics, and the

Abstract

The Mexican muralist Diego Rivera (1886-1957) was Jewish in his imagination only. During the 1930s, the artist invented a noble Sephardi lineage dating back to the seventeenth-century philosopher, Uriel Acosta (1585-1640). He subverted the Sephardic “Golden Age” Myth by highlighting the formerly downplayed history of persecution and expulsion. The communist leveraged his imaginary Converso genealogy as a way of identifying with the “downtrodden masses.” His Jewish pride and activism formed a bond between him and the many other Jews in his life. By putting him in contact with Jewish realities, his numerous Jewish “comrades,” friends, and acquaintances provided him with the materials he needed to create a symbolic Jewish identity. During the 1930s, the artist went on a “Jewish press-tour,” boasting his Jewish roots in interviews with the Jewish press in Mexico and the United States. Rivera created a Jewish genealogy in response to factors outside of himself, such as the rise of fascism and the intellectual milieu of the Jewish-left during the interwar period. The social activist made a mental connection between the Jews and the Indigenous people of pre-conquest Mexico who were both persecuted by early-modern Spanish institutions. He expressed his symbolic Jewish ethnicity by including motifs of Jews in the Inquisition in his art. This thesis explores how and why Rivera self-fashioned a Jewish identity.