Man at the Crossroads
The recreated version of the painting, known as Man, Controller of the Universe
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| Artist | Diego Rivera |
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| Year | 1934 |
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 Diego Rivera, Man Controller of the Universe, 7:08, Smarthistory
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Man at the Crossroads (1934) was a fresco by Diego Rivera in New York City's Rockefeller Center. The painting was controversial because it included an image of Lenin and a Soviet Russian May Day parade. Despite protests from artists, Nelson Rockefeller ordered its destruction before it was completed.
Only black-and-white photographs exist of the original incomplete mural, taken when Rivera was forced to stop work on it. Using the photographs, Rivera repainted the composition in Mexico under the variant title Man, Controller of the Universe.
The creation and destruction of the mural is dramatized in the films Cradle Will Rock (1999) and Frida (2002).
The Rockefellers wanted to have a mural put on the ground-floor wall of Rockefeller Center. Nelson Rockefeller wanted Henri Matisse or Pablo Picasso to do it because he favored their modern style, but neither was available. Diego Rivera was one of Nelson Rockefeller's mother's favorite artists and therefore was commissioned to create the huge mural. He was given a theme: "Man at the Crossroads Looking with Hope and High Vision to the Choosing of a New and Better Future." Rockefeller wanted the painting to make people pause and think. Rivera was to be paid $21,000 for the work. He was officially commissioned by Todd-Robertson-Todd Engineering, the development agents for the building. The full commission envisaged three murals. Man at the Crossroads would be in the center. It would be flanked by The Frontier of Ethical Evolution and The Frontier of Material Development. The central composition was intended to contrast Capitalism and Socialism.
Rivera's composition depicted many aspects of contemporary social and scientific culture. In the center, a workman was depicted controlling machinery. Before him, a giant fist emerged holding an orb depicting the recombination of atoms and dividing cells in acts of chemical and biological generation. From the central figure four propeller-like shapes stretched to the corner of the composition, depicting arcs of light created by giant lenses anchoring the left and right edges of the space. Rivera described these as "elongated ellipses". Within these, cosmological and biological forces such as exploding suns and cell-forms were depicted. These represented the discoveries made possible by the telescope and the microscope.
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