Quirks of fate are a fascination of mine. How many times has a small, seemingly unimportant incident set in motion a series of events that changed a person’s life forever?
In Wild Bird: The True Jazz Age Tale of Ruth Wightman Morris a seemingly innocuous cat bite leads to a series of events that culminates in Ruth’s friend Lord Hastings becoming one of Diego Rivera’s assistants on two of Rivera’s fresco projects in San Francisco––one at the Pacific Stock Exchange and the other at the San Francisco Art Institute––and later on his most important project in the United States at the Detroit Institute of the Arts.
During the period between the San Francisco projects and the Detroit project, Lord Hastings and another of Rivera’s assistants, Clifford Wight, created two frescos for Ruth and her husband at their home in Monterey.
From an art history perspective, Diego Rivera’s murals in San Francisco and Detroit are hugely important because they served as inspiration and models for WPA-funded public art projects across the country during the Great Depression.
Now here’s the good news. Visitors to San Francisco and Detroit can view Diego Rivera’s wonderful frescos in person. They are as powerful and dynamic as ever.
The next time you are in San Francisco, travel to 800 Chestnut Street, home of the San Francisco Art Institute, and walk right in, at no charge, to see the mural entitled The Making of a Fresco Showing the Building of a City, so named because Rivera chose to use the wall space at the art school to provide visual instruction about how a fresco is made. It is in essence a mural within a mural.
As you walk through the gate at the Art Institute, you will find yourself in an inner courtyard. Enter the building to your immediate left. Once inside look to your right. The mural stands some two stories high. Be sure to make note of the two figures on the scaffolding at the top. The figure on the left with the plum line is Lord Hastings. The figure on the right is Clifford Wight. On the level below in the center is Diego Rivera.
Your visit to the fresco entitled Allegory of California at the Pacific Stock Exchange, located at 155 Samsome Street in the financial district, will require a bit more planning. An organization called San Francisco City Guides offers guided tours (limited to 25 people) on the first and third Mondays of the month at 3:00 pm. Technically the tours are free, though guests are strongly encouraged to make a donation, and reservations generally need to be made at least 10 days in advance. For more information, go to sfcityguides.org.
Should your travels take you to Detroit, Michigan, by all means visit the Detroit Institute of the Arts, located at 5200 Woodward Avenue. Be aware that the museum is closed on Mondays.
In the meantime, the museum’s website offers a series of videos about Diego Rivera’s masterpiece that serve as an online guided tour of the project. Here is the address: http://www.dia.org/diego/tours.html.
Finally, if you would like to see the frescos that Lord Hastings and Clifford Wight created for Ruth Morris and her husband, the Monterey Museum of Art will be offering guided tours during its annual Art in Bloom event held in late April. Visit montereyart.org for more details. Of the fresco by Lord Hastings, Diego Rivera would later write that it is “tres jolie.” Frida Kahlo’s praise is equally effusive.
Ruth Wightman Morris certainly got around, didn’t she?