Diego Rivera was born December 8, 1886, in Guanajuato, Mexico. At the age of 10, he began studying art at the San Carlos Academy in Mexico City, in the shop of Félix Parra. In 1907 Rivera received a travel grant and went to Spain to study under Eduardo Chicharro. While in Europe, he traveled to England and Belgium, but he eventually settled in Paris. It was in Paris that Rivera was influenced by Picasso, Braque, Klee, Dérain, Mondrian, and Cézanne. From 1909 to 1920 Rivera traveled around Europe with Angelina Beloff, a young Russian painter. Between 1913 and 1917, Rivera made more than 200 Cubist paintings, but after a falling out with Picasso, and a dispute with the critic Pierre Reverdy, he turned away from Cubism, and began to work more in the style of Cézanne.

While in Paris, Rivera also met fellow Mexican artist David Alfaro Siqueiros. In 1921, following the Mexican Revolution, Rivera and Siqueiros returned to Mexico. There, together with other artists, including José Clemente Orozco, they formed the Painters' Syndicate, which issued a manifesto promoting public murals with social context. It was during this time that Rivera joined the Mexican Communist Party. In December 1921, Rivera started painting his first major mural for the Bolivar Auditorium of the National Preparatory School in Mexico City. Murals that followed included works for the Ministry of Public Education building in Mexico City, the National School of Agriculture at Chapingo, the Cortés Palace at Cuernavaca, and the National Palace in Mexico City. In 1922, Rivera married Guadalupe Marin, by whom he had two daughters. Their marriage fell apart in 1924, and in August 1929 Rivera married the artist Frida Kahlo.

In the early 1930s, Rivera traveled to the United States where he created murals which included works for the New Workers' School in New York City, the Pacific Stock Exchange in San Francisco, the San Francisco Art Institute, City College of San Francisco, and the Detroit Institute of Arts. In 1933 Rivera executed for the Rockefeller Center in New York City, but just one year later the Center destroyed this mural because one of the figures depicted resembled Vladimir Lenin. (Rivera later reproduced this mural at the Palace of Fine Arts, Mexico City.)

During the late 1930s and early 1940s, Rivera failed to get more commissions in the United States because he was regarded as being too radical. At this time he also lost favor among the Mexican Communist Party because of his support of Trotsky. In 1947 he painted for the Hotel del Prado in Mexico City. His largest mural, a work depicting the history of Mexico for the National Palace in Mexico City, was unfinished when Rivera died November 25, 1957.