Considered the greatest Mexican painter of the 20th century, Diego Rivera continues to have a profound effect on the international art world.

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Considered the greatest Mexican painter of the 20th century, Diego Rivera continues to have a profound effect on the international art world. As a young man, he encountered the works of Cézanne, Gauguin, Renoir and Matisse in Paris. But it was the Renaissance frescoes in Italy that fueled his vision of a new form of painting that could reach and celebrate the working man. He returned to Mexico and, ultimately, propelled the fusion of fresco with modern art and architecture. "An artist is above all a human being," he wrote. "If the artist can't feel everything that humanity feels ... if he won't put down his magic brush and head the fight against the oppressor, then he isn't a great artist." Rivera's personal story is equally dramatic, from his stormy love affair with fellow painter Frida Kahlo to his controversial commissions for Henry Ford and the Rockefellers in the United States.