Following Google main page meme - Diego Rivera, 125th Birthday, Mexican Painter extraordinaire, 1886-1957.
“Man at the Crossroads” - In 1933 the Rockefellers commissioned Rivera to paint a mural for the lobby of the RCA building in Rockefeller Center. “Man at the Crossroads” was to depict the social, political, industrial, and scientific possibilities of the twentieth century. In the painting, Rivera included a scene of a giant May Day demonstration of workers marching with red banners. It was not the subject matter of the panel that made the Rockerfellers angry, but the clear portrait of Vladamir Lenin, the Russian revolutionary leader of the Soviet Union, leading the demonstration. When Rivera refused to remove the portrait, he was ordered to stop and the painting was destroyed. That same year, Rivera used the money from the Rockefellers to create a mural for the Independent Labor Institute that had Vladamir Lenin as its central figure. http://readingworkbook.blogspot.com/
Myth, meme, urban legend has famous “destroyed” 30 Rock Lobby Rivera mural as hidden behind plaster wall (center left below). If still intact, the original 30 Rock Diego Rivera Mural would be worth an estimated $60-80 million.
Otherwise, why would the crown jewel of Art Deco Architecture in America, 30 Rockefeller Center, have such a bland boring substitute mural (above)?
Irony is, few these days can even remember the first name of the Rockefeller who rejected his work. That is why Diego Rivera's name is immortal.
(John D. Rockefeller Jr. - Who?)
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Indeed! Indeed! Indeed!
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