May Day, Moscow

1922–1929

Meeting Frida Kahlo

While still married to Guadalupe Marín, Rivera met the art student Frida Kahlo in Mexico City; a passionate affair began between them, and after his divorce from Marín they married.

autumn 1927

Arrival in Moscow for the anniversary of the October Revolution

Accepting a government invitation, Rivera went to Moscow to take part in the celebration of the tenth anniversary of the October Revolution.

1928

Meeting Alfred H. Barr Jr.

While still in the Soviet Union, Rivera met the American Alfred H. Barr Jr., soon to become his friend and patron and the founding director of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

1929

Expelled from the Party and dismissed as director of the Academy

Having watched Stalinisation in the USSR, Rivera came to hold Trotskyist views; in 1929 he was expelled from the Mexican Communist Party and removed as director of the San Carlos Academy.

21. August 1929

Married: Frida Kahlo

1930s

Asylum for Leon Trotsky

Rivera obtained from President Lázaro Cárdenas asylum in Mexico for the political exile Leon Trotsky and sheltered him and his wife Natalia Sedova in his own house; later a conflict arose between them.