DIEGO RIVERA at SFMOMA, San Francisco, CA

Pan American Unity, mural by Diego Rivera at SFMOMA, San Francisco

Stretching 74 feet from end to end, Diego Rivera’s giant mural known as Pan American Unity fills the Roberts Gallery on the first floor of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Painted on ten large panels for the Golden Gate International Exposition in 1940, it depicts a dizzying array of scenes detailing a past, present, and future that the artist believed were shared across North America.

Detail from center panel.

Rivera had been invited as the featured attraction in Art in Action, a massive exhibition that included artists creating works in front of a live audience.

When the 1940 exposition was over, the panels were moved to the campus of City College of San Francisco, where they remained until the summer of 2021 when the mural was moved temporarily to SFMOMA.

Center panels of Pan American Unity. (Original title, The Marriage of the Artistic Expression of the North and of the South on this Continent.)

I saw the Pan American Unity mural in December, 2022, on my visit to the museum to see the amazing retrospective of Diego Rivera’s work, Diego Rivera’s America, which focused on his work from the 1920s to mid-1940s. (The retrospective closed January 3, 2023, but the Pan American Unity mural will be on view for another year, until January 2024.) 

The Flower Carrier (1935)

I grew up with a print of Diego Rivera’s painting The Flower Carrier hanging over the piano in our house so when I saw it at the museum it was like meeting an old friend. I knew that Diego Rivera was a master painter, but I never appreciated the breadth of his work until I saw this exhibit. 

Self Portrait (1941) by Diego Rivera. This image appeared on a Mexican banknote.

Organized chronologically and thematically, the exhibit traced his development to become one of the greatest muralists of all time. He was also a portrait painter, costume designer, book illustrator, and social radical.

Studies for Creation, mural in Mexico City

From the beginning Diego Rivera thought big. On exhibit in one of the first rooms were his studies hands and heads. But unlike the small drawings I made in my sketch book in art school (drawing 50 hands was the first week’s homework assignment) Diego’s were all larger than life, as if for a giant.

The Market (1923-24). Mural painted at the headquarters of the Ministry of Public Education in Mexico City.

I wondered, in advance of going to the museum, how they were going to display Diego Rivera’s murals—since, unlike the Pan American Unity mural which was intended to be portable, most of the others are permanently attached to the walls on which they had been painted. The solution was to project photos of these other murals on the wall of a darkened room. As I stood there admiring the artwork towering before me, a figure of a real person suddenly crossed the screen, opened a door, and disappeared. Then another appeared and walked down the stairs. I realized then that the photos were actually videos, putting us the viewers into the scene and providing a sense of scale.

The Flowered Canoe (1931). A depiction of the canal system, originally built by the Aztecs, and still in use in the south of Mexico City.

The ten thematic galleries of the exhibit are dedicated to places that captured Diego Rivera’s imagination, and to his favorite subjects, such as street markets, popular celebrations, and images of labor and industry.

The Offering. In gallery featuring paintings of mothers and children.

One room contained pictures of mothers and children. Another gallery focused on his portraits, including some of people who were models for his murals.

Still Life and Blossoming Almond Trees (1931). Painted for the home of Sigmund and Rosalie Stern in rural San Mateo County. Ansel Adams photographed Rivera painting this mural.

Allegory of California (1930-32). Mural at the stairway of the Pacific Stock Exchange (now City Club), San Francisco. Model for woman is tennis star Helen Wills Moody.

Diego Rivera and Frida (1931) by Frida Kahlo (In the permanent collection of SFMOMA.)

In addition, there was a room of artwork by people influenced by Diego Rivera, including the famous marriage portrait by his wife, Frida Kahlo.The Mexican artist Frida Kahlo married Diego Rivera in 1929 and came with him to San Francisco in 1930.

The photos of the artwork you see in this post are just a fraction of the photos I took at the exhibit. I like to take photos when I go to a museum to help me remember and as a visual notes. Then, when I get home, I can enjoy the art all over again. I will continue to look at my photos and enjoy the art in Diego Rivera's America for a long time.

Banana, costume design for ballet HP (Horse Power), 1927, by Diego Rivera

 

 

GLOWFARI AT THE OAKLAND ZOO: Panorama of Larger Than Life Animal Lanterns

 

Glowfari, Lantern Festival at the Oakland Zoo, Oakland, CA

Lighting up the winter night at the Oakland Zoo in California are hundreds of larger-than-life animal lanterns, ranging from dinosaurs, mammoths and other extinct creatures, to butterflies, flowers, monkeys, koalas and a host of other animals. The themes of this year's Glowfari are Land of Extinction, California Coastline, Wonders from Down Under, Neon-Tropics and Mythical Odyssey. 

Giant Sea Reptile in Land of Extinction

The Glowfari Lantern Festival is open evenings at the Oakland Zoo (5:00-9:00 pm) and has been extended to March 4th. (The zoo was closed in January due to damage by heavy rain.) Tickets with timed entry are available online and sell out fast. (Tickets are not exchangeable.) Whatever the weather, Glowfari is open. 

For scale, note silhouettes of people carrying umbrellas.

As it happened, after a week of dry weather, on the night of our visit in late December it began to rain just as we arrived, so we put on our raincoats and got our umbrellas. Even in the rain, the lanterns were impressive. Here are some of my favorites:

Baby dinosaur hatching out of its egg.

Chambered Nautilus.

Capybara from South America.

Dingoes from Australia.

Lighted paths lead from one exhibit area to the next, ending at the gondola station which takes you to the upper level and the section featuring the California coastline, with lanterns ranging from whales to microscopic plankton.  The only real animals visible during Glowfari are the snakes and lizards in the reptile house. The rest of the zoo animals are all out of sight in their nighttime enclosures. 

Because of the weather and the long line of people waiting for the gondola, we skipped that part of Glowfari. We were sorry to miss it because we had enjoyed the gondola ride last year. The view from the top across San Francisco Bay is impressive. We’ll hope for better weather next year!

Under the sea.

 

SONGO NATURE CONSERVANCY, ZIMBABWE, Guest Post by Karen Minkowski

Elephants near Lake Kariba, Zimbabwe

My friend Karen Minkowski, a frequent contributor to The Intrepid Tourist and definitely an intrepid traveler, is currently in Africa, a place that she has visited often. She spent the month of November at the Songo Conservancy site, which is several hundred miles from Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe. She begins her report: 

Woodland Kingfisher (eats lizards and insects, not fish).

I recently spent three weeks in the Songo Conservancy northeast of Victoria Falls, on the shores of Lake Kariba, volunteering for the International Anti-Poaching Foundation (IAPF).

IAPF manages lands where both legal and illegal hunting have severely reduced wildlife populations. Some of these lands border national parks and/or could serve as corridors that would allow wildlife to move between protected areas. The organization recruits and trains young women as rangers who conduct anti-poaching operations within their own communities. (Akashinga is a documentary film about the first set of female rangers trained by IAPF (you can watch it at  https://www.iapf.org/the-film).  IAPF also supports schools, clinics, legal fishing camps and conservation education. The organization was founded by a charismatic, ex-military Australian. His mission is to wipe out poaching in Africa by building communities that coexist with wildlife and have zero tolerance for poaching or other environmental crimes, whether initiated from within or from the outside. The rangers are impressive, and their salaries help support their extended families.

Celebrating after the graduation ceremony for 40 some young women who had successfully completed their training as rangers. 

A full report of Karen's activities with the Songo Conservancy organization, filled with a description of her activities and her wonderful photographs, is HERE as a PDF.  It is filled with incredible close-ups of birds--Karen is a devoted bird-watcher with patience to catch the birds at their best. Karen's text makes you feel as if you are a vicarious visitor too. Enjoy!

Hippos spend their days in the water to keep cool. They feed at night, but on cloudy days, they sometimes leave the water to graze.

I have included just a few samples of her photographs. Be sure to go to the PDF to see all of them.

WALK IN THE WOODS: Bromley Family Nature Reserve, Chapel Hill, NC

Bromley Family Nature Reserve, Chapel Hill, NC

We were in North Carolina for Thanksgiving and it was a beautiful fall day, so we decided to take a walk in the Bromley Family Nature Reserve, one of many local preserves with trails for hiking and biking.

Wood Duck Way is for both bikers and hikers. A number of bikes passed us on the path. Some trails are for hikers only.

After parking our car, we set off on Wood Duck Way, a circular path about 1.2 long, mostly through forest. While we saw no wood ducks, or much other wildlife, we spotted several nest boxes high in the trees where the wood ducks would lay their eggs in the spring. 

The wood duck nest box is mounted about 6 feet from the ground.

In late November, a few golden leaves still clung to the branches, but most had fallen to the forest floor. Next spring, the leafy carpet will make a soft landing place for the wood ducklings as they leave the nest and plummet to the ground. They will follow their mother's calls to the pond nearby and she will look after them. (The baby ducks can’t fly, but are able swimmers.)

Black vultures.

As we continued down the path we spotted a pair of black vultures circling overhead, the white tips of their wide wings catching the sunlight. They disappeared and a few minutes later we noticed them again, perched on a branch just above the path. What puzzled us was a third vulture, dead on the ground below them, showing no sign of what had caused its demise, and we wondered if it was being mourned by its companions.

A guide to common birds helps to identify species that make their home in the nature preserve.

Midway around the circular path we took a branch that led across a creek and to a small lake and a picnic area.

Beaver dam and lodge with "beaver deceiver" drainage pipe.

On the way to the lake, we passed a beaver dam that had a large drainage pipe going through it. A sign explained that this was a “beaver deceiver” designed to keep a steady flow of water in the creek. Beavers are important to the ecosystem but their dams sometimes cause the paths to flood during rainy periods. By draining excess water behind the dam, but leaving enough to protect the beaver lodge, the paths stay dry for hikers and bikers and the beavers are safe and happy.

Walkway to dock.

Arriving at the lake, we walked out to the dock and peered over the edge, where we spotted numerous turtles paddling about in the shallow water. They too seemed to be enjoying the mild November day. As I looked back toward the shore I could see the reflection of the trees on the shore, their shapes and colors modulated by the ripples in the water, making them seem like a Monet painting. 

Reflections.

It was time to head back to the car and the perfect end to a walk in the woods on a beautiful fall day.