The formal title for Pan American Unity is The Marriage of the Artistic Expression of the North and of the South on This Continent.

It's huge, 22 feet high by 74 feet wide, weighing nearly thirty tons. The mural celebrates myths, artists, artisans, athletes, pioneers, laborers, architects, actors and inventors who use technology as tools to shape society.

Taken as a whole, the mural is visually overwhelming. Only with a careful closeup observation can its many stories begin to be unlocked.

In the photo (left), I am dwarfed by the mural's phenomenal dimensions.

Diego Rivera not only needed a well fleshed-out idea for this mural, he needed to marshal all the materials, his support staff of artists and assistants, and also to give close attention to the engineering design of the mural so that it could later be moved successfully. He had to be a producer and director and a publicity agent as well as an artist.

In 1940, the San Francisco Bay Area celebrated the completion of the Golden Gate Bridge (opened in May 1937) and the Bay Bridge (opened November 1936). The Golden Gate International Exposition was held on Treasure Island, an artificial island created for the fair, just north of Yerba Buena Island at the middle of the Bay Bridge.

Its attractions included The Art in Action Exhibition which showed artists at work. The featured artist was Diego Rivera, who was tasked with creating a mural during the exhibition where viewers could watch the mural being constructed, plastered and painted, oftentimes by Diego Rivera himself.

Rivera chose a theme calling attention to the strength and unity of North and South American myth, culture, economic ingenuity and strength in the face of the threat of rising European fascism and tyranny. Bear in mind that he did it nearly two years before Pearl Harbor and America's entry into World War II.

He referenced native American myth and leaders, industrialists, inventors, artists and American film makers and Hollywood stars, including his personal friends, Edward G. Robinson, Charlie Chaplin and Paulette Goddard.

I've read about and studied Pan American Unity for a couple of weeks now and see something new each time I return to the project. It is filled with historical incidents, personalities, and ideas, far more than I can convey. I encourage you to see it at SFMOMA before it leaves in January 2024. That's when it is scheduled to be moved to its permanent home at San Francisco City College and will be less accessible.

Panel 1 - Top

The very top of Panel 1 has the snowcapped peaks of Mount Ixtaccihuatl and Mount Popocatepetl. They are towering volcanoes to the east of Mexico City.

The grid of buildings to the right is a composite scene representing all the temples of Tenochtitlan around the year 1325 A.D.

The circle of seated people is the ruling council, sitting and listening to a lesson taughtby a high priest speaking in the name of Quetzalcoatl.

The dancers and musicians in the lower right are performing the Deer Dance.

Panel 1 - Middle
On the lower left is Diego Rivera's dog. The dog is a Xoloitzcuintli, a breed developed by the Aztecs. Both Rivera and Kahlo used Xoloitzcuintli dogs as models in their paintings.

The artisans working on the cylindrical stone are carving a human figure into the stone.

The horizontal golden figure being worked on by two artisans is the Jaguar deity, sacred to the Olmec, Maya, Toltec, Mixtec and Aztec people.

Panel 1 - Bottom
On the left side, is King Nezahualcoyotl, 1403-1470, the King of Texcoco which has been described as the Athens of the Western World. According to tradition, he is pictured with a flying machine he invented.

On the right side is a group of Mixtec metalworkers. The Aztec referred to Northwest Oaxaca as Mixtlan, “place of the clouds.” The work of these artisans was highly regarded and many were brought to Tenochtitlan to make gold jewelry using the lost wax process. They could make fire hot enough to work with gold, but not hot enough to work with iron or steel.

Panel two blends native Mexican myth with the accomplishments of twentieth century San Francisco.

San Francisco had lots to celebrate. Both of the bridges now spanning San Francisco Bay were modern engineering wonders. San Francisco, the booming west coast metropolis with the largest natural harbor in the nation, was a gleaming urban center for world trade, a place of pride and progess.

Acrobatically arched soaring high above the new Bay Bridge is American diving champion Helen Crienkovich. The suspension section of the Bay Bridge shines below her. It was used by most visitors to get to Treasure Island to visit the Golden Gate International Exposition.

Taken as a whole, Panel 2 is offering a huge celebratory pat on the back for San Francisco and its accomplishments during the Great Depression. The opening of the two new bridges was the source of great economic optimism and cultural ascendancy for the region.

Part of what Diego Rivera wanted to accomplish with his mural is to show San Francisco as a world-class city and the strength of American Unity.

Helen Crienkovich competed in 3 meter spring board and 10 meter platform diving and was famous. She had the opportunity to relinquish her amateur athletic status and dive for Billy Rose's Aquacade at the Exposition for a whopping $250.00 / week. She turned that down in order to retain her amateur status. After her competative days, she later earned her pilot license and worked as the stunt double in the movies for her close friend, swimmer Esther Williams.

In the middle of Panel 2 is Mexico's greatest contemporary sculptor, Madonio Magana (1865-1947). Here, he is pictured carving the head of Quetzalcoatl at the Museum of Modern Art in Mexico City. Quetzalcoatl is the plumed serpent, an Aztec deity. In Aztec tradition, the serpent's movements symbolize the waves of lightning, water and the strata in soil and rocks. Its brilliant plumage symbolizes light.

The bottom-left of Panel 2 features the back of Diego Rivera as he is busy painting "the Liberty Tree." To his left is a fresco plasterer preparing a wet surface necessary for applying the fresco colors. In the foreground behind Diego Rivera are a group of Mexican artisans and crafts people. Included is a potter, a wood carver, a tin smith. a weaver and basket weavers.

The bottom-right shows a group of South and North American patriots. Left to right are Simon Bolivar (1783-1830), who lead South American revolutions against Spanish rule, Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla (1753-1811), a Mexican priest and revolutionary known as the father of Mexican Independence, and Jose Maria Morelos y Pavon (1765-1815), another Mexican priest who was also a military leader and statesman who fought for Mexican Independence.

North American patriots include George Washington (1732-1799), military leader for the American forces against the British and the first President of the United States. Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) was the author of the Declaration of Independence and the third President of the United States. The quotation he is holding says, "The Tree of Liberty needs to be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) rounds out this row of patriots. Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation and is shown holding his Gettysburg Address. In the front of Washington and Lincoln is the fiery abolitionist John Brown (1800-1959). He was hanged in Virginia just two years before the Civil War for having lead the slave uprising at Harper's Ferry.

The top of Panel three shows the Aztec Goddess of Life, Coatlicue merged with a huge stamping machine from Detroit symbolizing the union between North American industrial strength with South American myth.

The bottom of Panel 3 shows the merging of South and North American creative ideas. To the left, Frida Kahlo is standing next to a blank canvas, seemingly seeking inspiration in native traditions.

Diego Rivera is seated next to Hollywood movie star Paulette Goddard. Together, they are holding the tree of life and love together. The little girl with a green bow in her hair, white blouse and blue skirt had been a subject in a few of Rivera's paintings, including two paintings in Diego Rivera's America on display in a different part of SFMOMA.

To the right are Timothy Pflueger, architect of the Federal Building on Treasure Island and architect for the Pflueger Library (which was never built due to WWII). In 1940, the Pflueger Library was to be the eventual home for Pan American Unity.

Next to Pflueger is Dudley Christopher Carter, the Northwest wood carving artist mentioned above.

An aside -- In 1940, Paulette Goddard (pictured above) was a big Hollywood star. At the time of the exposition, she was the wife of Charlie Chaplin. Hollywood reporter and "The Queen of Hollywood Gossip" Louella Parsons wrote in William Randolph Hearst's San Francisco Examiner that Goddard had an affair with Diego Rivera and that Frida Kahlo and Paulette Goddard were good friends. Previously, Kahlo was widely believed to have become a friend and lover with another of Diego Rivera's love interests, Dolores del Rio. Louella Parsons repeated a rumor too good not to share that implied that Frida Kahlo and Paulette Goddard were more than just friends.

This negative publicity did not seem to hurt attendance at the Golden Gate International Exhibition nor Diego Rivera's popularity. When visitors viewed Diego Rivera's mural, the images of Paulette Goddard, Charlie Chaplin, Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo probably drew the most public interest. As Oscar Wilde once said, "There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is NOT being talked about."

The top of Panel 4 must have been a crowd pleaser. Again, Helen Crienkovich is pictured arched high above the bay, this time arched in the opposite direction over the cantilever section of the bridge. Below her is Treasure Island, home of the Golden Gate International Exposition. In the distance, Alcatraz and Angel Island can be seen.

There is a wood carver creating a ship's figurehead. This worker represents many European immigrant artists who came to America and found ways to practice their art. Many such artists added the skills they learned in the old country, bringing an infusion of new skills and ideas to American folk art and sculpture.

In the middle of Panel 4, we see two diving competitors looking skyward at the graceful Helen Crienkovich.

The woman in a gray suit and a blue hat is an architect speaking with Otto Deichmann, a German-American architect who designed the Shasta-Cascade Building at the GGIE. The woman in the red long sleeved top and jeans is Emmy Lou Packard, Rivera's assistant on this mural. She was a prominent artist and social activist.

I believe the bottom of Panel 4 to be the core message of the mural. Rivera is visually making a plea for the Americas to prepare for war. Its imagery is rich and urgent. Rivera was working on this in 1940, nearly two years before the United States enters the war in December of 1941. In 1940, life is good. The Great Depression is fading and optimism rules. Most Americans are enjoying peace and isolation and don't want to become involved in another European war.

The white and blue colored section at the top of Panel 4-Bottom shows three figures seemingly emerging from a gaseous tree-like cloud. The figures are left to right, Joseph Stalin, Adolph Hitler and Benito Mussolini -- the "Trinity of Tyrants." Stalin is holding a knife and ice ax echoing the murder of Leon Trotsky just weeks earlier in Mexico City. Diego Rivera was a friend of Trotsky. Below Stalin are the initials G.P.U., initials at the time for the Soviet secret police and the world Gestapo, the Nazi secret police. Together, these letters form a cross, showing an unholy alliance. Below them a World War I soldier wearing a gas mask lies fallen over barbed wire.

The bottom panel also highlights two then-very-current (pre WWII) anti-Nazi films.

In the lower left of Panel 4 are actors Edward G. Robinson and Francis Lederer in 1939's Confessions of a Nazi Spy. Released in May of 1939, it was the first anti-Nazi film produced by Hollywood. The story was based on articles by FBI officer Leon G. Turrou about Nazi spy rings active in the United States. Although the film did poorly at the box office, it won the 1939 National Board of Review Award for Best Film.

Diego Rivera liked these two actors and they were both collectors of Mexican Art.

The right side of the panel shows Charlie Chaplin in two scenes from Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator. The film was nominated for five Oscars: Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best Original Screenplay and Best Original Score. The scene of a Hitleresque character dancing with the fantasy of world domination is especially noteworthy and bears relevance today.

Charlie Chaplin's second wife at the time, Paulette Goddard, appears twice in Panel 4 - Bottom. She played Hanna in The Great Dictator and is pictured with her hands raised beside her face in horror and another scene where she is cowering next to a doorway after having been pelted with tomatoes by Nazi storm trooper thugs. She rises after the soldiers leave, with eyes of anger and steaming determination to fight back.

At the very top of Panel 5 are Mount Lassen and Mount Shasta, balancing Mount Ixtaccihuatl and Mount Popocatepetl at the top of Panel 1.

Below them is the building site of Shasta Dam, symbolizing the huge industrial efforts being made in the western United States. The large aluminum towers are to carry electrical cables. Also pictured are 49ers pouring into California and the harvesting of big trees. A train trestle through the mountains shows the towering achievement of rail transport connecting California with the rest of the nation.

The Middle of Panel 5 shows 3 men mining for gold using a sluice box, hydraulic mining and panning for gold. Sarah Gerstle is shown teaching a child about embroidery. Sara Gerstle's husband William was president of the California School of Fine Arts, home of another of Rivera's murals.

The men to the right in Panel 5 Middle are artisans, fashioning a wooden power screw. I've been unable so far to discover what a power wood screw was or what it would have been used for, but it is an example of industrial might and determination.

The Bottom of Panel 5 shows Henry Ford holding a fuel pump used in his Model A & B Fords. He is standing in front of an assembly line, similar to the ones Rivera painted in his Detroit murals. Next to Ford is Thomas Edison, shown with his inventions, the light bulb and phonograph. Edison was a favorite of Rivera because of his production of motion picture equipment. The famous San Francisco art critic Alfred Frankenstein quoted Rivera, "The motion picture is the ultimate development of mural painting, and is the most important original contribution to art made by North American culture."

On the right side of Panel 5 Bottom are Samuel F.B. Morse, inventor of the telegraph. Next to him is Robert Fulton, engineer and inventor who engineered the first successful steamboat. He is shown with models of two steamships, the Clermont and the Demologos, an armed floating battery.

Jos Sances points to America's extraction of minerals, timber, coal and oil, their scaring of the land and effects on people. He illustrates the horror of the American slave trade and the stripping of native Americans from their land, from their culture, and their subjugation to life on the reservation and eventual assimilation. He tells the visual story of Henry Ford and the overwhelming effects of the automobile and freeways, linking, but also transforming our landscape and culture. He points with horror to the threat of fascism and Naziism brought on by World War II and its effects capped by the Holocaust. He illustrates how fascist ideas still thrive today through fundamentalism (Islamic, Zionist, and Christian). He draws so poignantly the plight of both economic and political refugees from the 1930's to the present. And then he points to environment, to the melting of the polar ice caps and the effects of climate change weather events. He shows our shores littered with plastic deposited by the ocean on America's beaches, 'from sea to shining sea.'

Taken as a whole, Jos Sances' mural is a gut punch, a huge dose of well documented evidence for Americans to ponder and address. It's a poignant teaching tool, not meant to hurt anyone or to preach, but to be a reality check, an invitation to truthfully consider our past and question our direction going forward. It doesn't have one singular message, but a chorus of messages. It is most worthy piece of art and is well worth your time to go see it, stand beneath it, and peer and ponder its many striking images. It's best to see it with a friend and discuss and comment as you stand below the whale.

Or, The Whale Lecture by Jos Sances & Jeff Peterson
November 12, 2022, $10.00, 6:30 pm -7:30 pm
Sebastopol Center for the Arts

Jos Sances will discuss his creation of Or, The Whale, including his encounters with whales in the waters off Todos Santos in Baja California.

Jeffrey Peterson, literary scholar, will discuss how the mural relates to Moby Dick.

A NEW EDWARD HOPPER EXHIBITION -- Its a big hit in New York!
Edward Hopper’s New York, Oct 19, 2022 - March 5, 2023
The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Recently, we looked back at the phonemenal Edward Hopper exhibition held at the Art Institute of Chicago in 2008. Now, a new major Edward Hopper exhibition is to be held in New York. Hopper lived in New York for almost 60 years. This exhibition at the Whitney Museum looks at Hopper's paintings of New York. And yes, Night Hawks has left Chicago for a trip to the Big Apple!

Link to the Whitney Museum Hopper Exhibition page

Bentonville, AR
Crystal Bridges
Museum of American Art

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