#21: “Man at the Crossroads” by Diego Rivera – Rockefeller Center, NYC (destroyed)
Commissioned for Rockefeller Center in 1933, Rivera’s mural included a portrait of Lenin. Which, much to Rivera’s amusement, infuriated the Rockefellers: they had the mural destroyed before it was finished. Rivera recreated it in Mexico, and today it’s often studied as a case of ideological conflict in public art. Though the original is gone, its legacy is well documented in U.S. institutions.
