The Diego Rivera Mural Collection documents the creation and ongoing history of the fresco that renowned Mexican muralist Diego Rivera painted in 1931 on one wall of the gallery of the California School of Fine Arts (later known as the San Francisco Art Institute). Although untitled at the time, the work is now known as The Making of a Fresco Showing the Building of a City. This collection also documents the mural’s afterlife at SFAI, including its covering and uncovering (first with a false wall and a translucent lowered ceiling and later with curtains) in the 1950s-1970s; a number of conservation treatments; various appraisals of the mural’s value; works created by artists in response to the mural; controversy generated by the proposal to sell the mural as a stop-gap measure to prevent the school’s closure in 2020; its subsequent designation as a San Francisco historical landmark; and the role the mural played in SFAI’s 2022 closure and bankruptcy. The collection also includes newspaper clippings, assorted publications, and other ephemera related to the mural generated by SFAI and externally.

Diego Rivera was commissioned to paint a mural at the California School of Fine Arts (CSFA) not long after the school had moved from its former location in a long-term temporary building on Nob Hill to a brand new building, designed for the school by architect Arthur Brown and opened for classes in 1926. Rivera’s mural commission was an opportunity to inaugurate the new space. Although a smaller, less prominent wall was initially suggested, Rivera eventually settled on painting one wall of the building’s sizable gallery, a venue for exhibitions and lectures. Leadership of the school’s governing body, the San Francisco Art Association (SFAA) was key in bringing Rivera to San Francisco to complete not only the CSFA mural but the mural he painted at the Pacific Stock Exchange Building in 1930/1931 as well. Sculptor and faculty member Ralph Stackpole was a friend of Rivera’s, and brought his work to the attention of both SFAA board member Timothy Pflueger, an architect who had commissioned sculptures from Stackpole for the Pacific Stock Exchange Building, and SFAA President William Gerstle, who agreed to finance the CSFA commission. San Francisco arts patron Albert Bender also played a critical role, intervening when Rivera’s visa for the trip was initially denied because of his Communist political leanings. Rivera’s visit to San Francisco with his wife, the artist Frida Kahlo, was a significant event within the local arts community, and well-covered by the press. Rivera gave talks to local groups, parties were thrown in his honor, and he served as a juror for the year’s SFAA Annual exhibition. Exhibitions of Rivera’s paintings and drawings were held in local galleries and at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor. The CSFA mural was one of four frescos Rivera completed in the San Francisco Bay Area. In addition to his CSFA and Pacific Stock Exchange murals, Rivera completed a small-scale fresco in 1931 for the Stern family in Atherton, now owned by the University of California, Berkeley. Rivera’s fourth Bay Area fresco was completed in 1940 as part of the Art In Action program of the Golden Gate International Exposition on Treasure Island. This mural was eventually installed at City College of San Francisco after the close of the fair. As a major work of art by a world-renowned artist with a prominent location in the school’s gallery, Rivera’s mural held a strong presence within the school. It remained on view in the gallery through the end of the 1940s, when the decision was made to cover the mural with a translucent drop ceiling and false wall, sometime around 1950. The official reason given for this was that the mural detracted from other work being shown in the gallery, although it has also been speculated that politics and/or changing stylistic trends in art were factors. The mural remained covered until 1957 when the translucent drop ceiling was removed, although a low wall remained in place, covering only the painted legs of the scaffolding depicted in the mural and allowing artwork to continue to be installed below the mural on the north side of the gallery. Sometime in or after 1966, curtains were installed in the gallery that allowed the mural to be covered or uncovered as desired. These were removed permanently sometime around 1980. The fresco underwent a number of conservation treatments over the years. Early conservation efforts were completed by muralists Lucienne Bloch and Stephen Pope Dimitroff, both of whom had worked as assistants for Rivera on previous projects. In 1986 their work coincided with the 100th anniversary of Rivera’s birth, and was celebrated by open houses held at SFAI, UC Berkeley’s Stern Hall, and City College of San Francisco. Lucienne Bloch returned in 1990 to repair additional nicks in the plaster, and in 1992, both Bloch and Dimitroff returned to participate in a multi-day workshop, along with professional conservators Anne Rosenthal, Jim Bernstein, Will Shank, and Molly Lambert. The event combined conservation of the mural by the team of conservators with demonstrations and history talks by Bloch and Dimitroff, as well as visits to Rivera’s other San Francisco murals. Conservation report includes mention of the “white residue (thought to be toothpaste or similar material) used in unauthorized overpainting of the star symbol hanging from the mural figure’s breast pocket. Majority of the residue was removed in a prior treatment.” This overpainting was reportedly the result of a prank in which students added a hammer and sickle symbol to the figure of the worker’s red badge. The intervention coincided with the photographing of the mural for the 1986 Detroit Institute of Arts, Diego Rivera: A Retrospective in which art historians included the “tiny hammer and sickle” as evidence of Rivera’s politics, and was removed in the 1986 cleaning by Bloch and Dimitroff. Additional conservation work was done in 1997 by Inge-Lise Eckmann, in 2001-2004 by Anne Rosenthall, and in 2022 by Site & Studio Conservation. In 2020, faced with a financial crisis resulting from declining enrollment and unsustainable debt, SFAI’s Board of Trustees announced that they were looking into the possibility of selling or endowing the Rivera mural. Appraised in March 2020 at $50,000,000, the mural was by far the school’s most significant asset. There was a strong and immediate backlash to the announcement from both within the SFAI community and without (as well as some support for the sale, as evidenced by a July 21, 2020 letter written by artist and former faculty member Mildred Howard, and signed by hundreds of members of the local arts community). The potential sale received national news coverage. In response to the threat of the mural’s sale and potential relocation, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors designated the mural a historical landmark in January 2021. While the mural could still be sold in place or endowed, the possibility of its removal from the SFAI campus was off the table. When SFAI declared bankruptcy in April 2023, the mural remained a key asset in play. The sale of SFAI in bankruptcy became a joint venture between the Regents of the University of California (the property owner), and the bankruptcy court, owner of the mural and SFAI’s other assets.

3 boxes (1.5 linear feet)

Contact the San Francisco Art Institute Legacy Foundation + Archive for questions or requests regarding use of these materials.

The collection is open for research use.