Open-Air School

Education was a central part of Diego Rivera's perspective on how to empower and unify the lower classes, a perspective shared by the revolutionary governments in the 1920s and 1930s. It is not surprising, then, that Rivera would turn to this theme frequently in his murals. The image here derives from a 1924 fresco at the Ministry of Public Education in Mexico City. It shows Rivera's preference for scenes of the post-revolutionary reconstruction of Mexican life, as opposed to muralists like Orozco who often portrayed the violence, disillusionment, and suffering of the war years. Although not their primary medium, lithographs nevertheless proved a useful supplementary source of income for muralists and a means of disseminating their images to a wider audience.