On July 25, 1932, renowned artist Diego Rivera began painting one of his most complex artworks – the Detroit Industry Murals.
The murals consist of 27 panels across four walls in what is now Rivera Court in the Detroit Institute of Arts. They are devoted to American industry.
According to the National Parks Service, Rivera was commissioned to paint the murals in 1931, and between April and July of 1932, he toured and sketched Ford's River Rouge Plant and other industrial sites.
The NPS said that rather than focusing on the city that was hit hard by the Great Depression, Rivera focused on the modernistic and high-tech plant and its workers. The DIA's Arts Commission said it would pay $10,000 from the Edsel B. Ford Fund, plus cover the cost of materials and plastering, and it was expanded to cover all four walls of the Garden Court with a budget of $20,899.
The north and south panels of the murals focus on the four races, the auto industry and other industries like Detroit medicine, drugs, gas bomb production and chemicals. The east and west walls show off the development of technology.
The largest panel on the north wall focuses on the construction of the engine and transmission of the car, combining the interior of five buildings at the Rouge Plant.
The largest Detroit Industry Murals panel on the north wall focuses on the construction of the engine and the transmission of an automobile. The panel combines the interior of five buildings at the Rouge: the blast furnace, open hearth furnace, production foundry, motor assembly plant, and steel rolling mills. The panel represents all the important operations in the production of the automobile, specifically the engine and transmission housing of the 1932 Ford V-8. The panel shows the process of the how the engine is produced.
"He captures in the mural panels the technology of the Rouge, the brilliant condensation of the general flow of manufacture and transportation that governed the entire factory, and the tension on the determined faces of workers caused by performing the string of repetitive tasks at maximum speed," the NPS says on its site.
According to the NPS, negative press began to emerge before the murals were unveiled, and it eventually grew worldwide with people for and against the murals. Despite the press, the NPS said the Arts Commission voted to accept the murals. They were completed on March 13, 1933.
The murals were designated a National Historic Landmark by the National Parks Service in 2014.
