Diego Rivera and his San Francisco Murals

Location, Contact Information, and Hours

The Diego Rivera Special Collection is housed in the Russell M. Posner Reading Room inside the Rosenberg Library in Room 510.

If you have a research interest in the collection, please contact the following librarians with your inquiries. Access to the collection is limited due to staffing shortages and budgetary constraints. If you are planning a visit, especially from out of town, contact us in advance to arrange an appointment. 

Lisa Velarde or Mauro Garcia 

Description of Collection

The Diego Rivera Special Collection consists of approximately 400 cataloged titles focusing on the life and work of Diego Rivera and artists who assisted him in his work. The collection focuses on Rivera’s murals, particularly the Pan American Unity Mural at CCSF. The collection also contains uncataloged material such as letters, oral interviews, realia, and photographs. Three file cabinets contain files of secondary material related to the mural, Rivera’s life and work, and local SF/Bay Area artists from Rivera’s era here, 1930s-1940s. To a lesser degree, the collection also contains material about artist Frida Kahlo. The collection is non-circulating but photographs and photocopies may be made of most items.

Collection Highlights

• An hour-long sound recording made by Rivera in 1955, two years before his death, in which he talks about his life, his art, his politics, and Pan American Unity;
• Articles Rivera wrote for the Russian Hill Runt (“I am not a communist”) and Esquire magazine;
• Hundreds of pages of letters and other primary material related to Rivera and his contemporaries photocopied from archives in the United States and Mexico, including research on Rivera done by Pan American Unity Lead Assistant Emmy Lou Packard;
• Binders of information generated by famed architect and GGIE Chairman of the Fine Arts Committee Timothy Pflueger;
• Dozens of photographs of Rivera and his assistants creating the mural;
• A copy of Diego Rivera, the Complete Murals, which reproduces 47 Rivera murals made in Mexico and the United States;
• A copy of Rivera and Kahlo’s marriage license, issued by San Francisco City Hall in December, 1940.

There is also a collection of framed photographs about the creation of the mural on permanent exhibition in the Posner Reading Room. The collection contains photos of the mural in progress, the Golden Gate International Exposition, Diego and Frida, Edward G. Robinson, Emmy Lou Packard and others.