Microbiology, Public Health, and the Murals of Diego Rivera

Abstract Diego Rivera, an acclaimed Mexican painter active during the first half of the 20th century, painted multiple frescoes in Mexico and the United States. Some include depictions of bacteria, their interactions with human hosts, and processes related to microbiology and public health, including the microbial origin of life, diagnosis of infection, vaccine production, and immunization. Microbiological subjects in Rivera's murals at the Mexican Ministry of Health in Mexico City; the Detroit Institute of Art, Detroit; Rockefeller Center, New York/Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City; Chapultepec Park, Mexico City; and the Institute of Social Security, Mexico City, span almost 25 years, from 1929 to 1953. Illustrating the successes of the application of microbiological discoveries and methods to public health and the prevention and treatment of infectious diseases, they benefited from Rivera's creativity in melding microbiology's unique technological and scientific aspects and public health elements with industrial and political components. The scientific, historical, and political contexts of 5 frescoes painted by Diego Rivera, the widely acclaimed 20th-century Mexican artist, that depict the application of microbiological discoveries to the prevention and treatment of infectious diseases are briefly examined and explored.