Diego Rivera, the Big Game and Card Stunts

Recently, I was watching American Masters on PBS which focused on Diego Rivera, considered one of the greatest Mexican artists of all time. I have always been fascinated and impressed by his work. For those of you who do not know me, I am a first generation American of Mexican descent. It has only been recently that I have been more fully embracing my ancestry, primarily due to my increasing knowledge of my fascinating family history.

Anyway, there was a segment of the program that described his visit to San Francisco in 1930, where he had painted murals for the Pacific Stock Exchange and the California School of Fine Arts. It should also be noted that a Diego Rivera mural can be found in Stern Hall.

Imagine my surprise when the screen showed a newspaper article and picture of Diego Rivera and his wife, Frida Kahlo, attending Big Game. The television program did not discuss this article, but after conducting extensive online searching, the article appeared in the Oakland Post-Enquirer on November 29, 1930 as referenced by this 1977 article I found here by Robert L. Scott:

He [Rivera] was the hit of the Stanford-California football game in 1930, which he attended in a sombrero with his wife, the artist Frida Kahlo dressed in a full native Mexican costume; afterwards he gave an interview in which he compared football to a bullfight—but joyous, not brutal—and called the cardsection “art in the mass, a new form of art.” [emphasis mine]

Unfortunately, Cal lost that game. But according to the Oakland Tribune articles about the game, the rooter stunts by Cal stole the show.