page_title: Man at the Crossroads
section_title: Destruction
hierarchical_section_title: Man at the Crossroads / Destruction
caption_attribution_description: Español: Detalle de Lenin en la obra El hombre en el cruce de caminos (1934) de Diego Rivera, mural en exhibición permanente en el Palacio de Bellas Artes de la Ciudad de México
context_page_description: Man at the Crossroads was a fresco by Diego Rivera in New York City's Rockefeller Center. It was originally slated to be installed in the lobby of 30 Rockefeller Plaza, the main building of the center. Man at the Crossroads showed the aspects of contemporary social and scientific culture. As originally installed, it was a three-paneled artwork. A central panel depicted a worker controlling machinery. The central panel was flanked by two other panels, The Frontier of Ethical Evolution and The Frontier of Material Development, which respectively represented socialism and capitalism.
  The Rockefeller family approved of the mural's idea: showing the contrast of capitalism as opposed to communism. However, after the New York World-Telegram complained about the piece, calling it "anti-capitalist propaganda", an image of Vladimir Lenin and a Soviet Russian May Day parade were secretly added in protest. When these were discovered, Nelson Rockefeller – at the time a director of the Rockefeller Center – wanted Rivera to remove the portrait of Lenin, but Rivera was unwilling to do so.
context_section_description: On April 24, 1933, the New York World-Telegram published an article attacking the mural as anti-capitalist propaganda. As a defiant response to the article, Rivera or one of his assistants added scenes of May Day in Moscow and a portrait of Lenin to the mural, which had not been apparent in initial sketches. The Rockefellers did not express any visible concern about the mural. On April 28, to ensure that the late addition of Lenin would be undetected, Rivera sent his assistants to make sure that there was no trace of the Lenin portrait in the blueprints and outlines for Man at the Crossroads. Rivera thought that if anyone were to check the blueprints, they would not be able to discern the hidden portrait of Lenin unless they looked closely. He believed that his close relationship with the Rockefellers would permit the surreptitious addition of the portrait. The Lenin portrait would still have gone unnoticed if not for a mistake made by workmen applying a final coat of paint to the wall above Rivera's mural. Some of the paint dripped onto the mural, and when Raymond Hood went to examine the drip, he found the portrait of Lenin.
  
  Following the discovery of Lenin's portrait, Nelson Rockefeller delayed the mural's planned May 1 unveiling. He wrote to Rivera to request that the painter remove the picture of Lenin. The portrait was the only thing about Man at the Crossroads that offended the Rockefeller family, despite the presence of other overtly Communist icons such as the hammer and sickle. A letter of reply from Rivera, written on May 6, politely declined the offer to remove Lenin's portrait, but by way of a compromise, offered to add Abraham Lincoln to the work. Rivera also said that he would be amenable to adding portraits of other American icons such as the abolitionists Nat Turner, John Brown, or Harriet Beecher Stowe, but he refused to remove the portrait of Lenin: 
  "Rather than mutilate the conception [of the mural], I shall prefer the physical destruction of the conception in its entirety, but preserving, at least, its integrity."
   Daniel Okrent states that Rivera did not write the letter himself, instead leaving the task to Ben Shahn, the assistant most strongly opposed to Nelson's request to remove the Lenin portrait.
  Nelson then left the decision about the future of the mural to Todd, Robertson & Todd. Hugh Robertson, one of the firm's principals, had written a reply to Rivera by May 9. In the letter, Robertson wrote that Rivera had deceived Rockefeller Center Inc. in the contract he made with them, and thus, Rivera was compelled to remove the Lenin portrait immediately. However, it was unclear whether Rivera understood that the painting belonged to Rockefeller Center Inc. After reading the letter, Rivera went back to his painting.
  On May 10, 1933, as Rivera and his assistants worked on the mural, they were scrutinized throughout the day during what Rivera called "the battle of Rockefeller Center". By the evening, Robertson had ordered that Rivera stop all work on the mural. Rivera was paid in full, but the mural was covered in drapery and left incomplete. He was unsatisfied with the monetary payment, saying that he intended to complete the mural: "I will not change my mural even if I lose in the courts." Rivera's net profit from Man at the Crossroads only amounted to US$7,000 (equivalent to $138,254 in 2019), a third of his total payment, after accounting for all expenses. He promised to reproduce the mural at any building that asked him to do so. On May 12, two days after the stop-work order was announced, Rivera was also dismissed from a commission at Chicago's Century of Progress exhibition, where he had been hired to paint a mural for General Motors' pavilion. An architect for GM cited the controversy surrounding Man at the Crossroads as the grounds for Rivera's dismissal.
  The concealment of Man at the Crossroads was itself controversial. The artist John Sloan, the writer Lewis Mumford, and the photographer Alfred Stieglitz all showed support toward Rivera's position, while the Communist Party was stuck bet
caption: The controversial portrait of Lenin, as seen in the recreated painting.
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