In the 1930s, many Mexican artists lived in New York for significant stretches of time. This lecture illuminates why Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo came to New York in the 1930s, what their impressions of the city were, and the impact it had on their careers. In addition to Rivera’s well-known Rockefeller Center controversy, the lecture addresses lesser-known but significant chapters of the artists’ Manhattan careers.

Lecturer Veronica Roberts (MA, University of California, Santa Barbara) is a curatorial assistant in the Department of Painting and Sculpture at MoMA. In May 2009, she installed a gallery dedicated to Mexican Modernist art in the fifth-floor Painting and Sculpture Galleries, and she is currently teaching a course at MoMA on Mexican modern art of the 1930s and 1940s.]]> ]]> html]]>