Source: WTL research files.
Mural: "Health, Purity, Knowledge, and Symbols of Fruition" (fresco, 1929) in the conference room in the Secretaría de Salubridad y Asistencia, in Mexico City.
Comments: In 1928, Rivera worked with a group of artists in Moscow called October, who campaigned for public art based on socialist ideals and traditional customs. This group opposed both Socialist Realism (the offical Soviet art doctrine) and the avant-garde. Rivera is subsequently expelled from Russia by Stalin, and the returns to Mexico where he meets Frida Kahlo. In 1929, he is elected president of the Workers and Farmers Bloc and he is appointed director of the Academia de San Carlos, and he paints murals in this conference room. The central nude at the top is called "Salud" (Health). In 1929, he begins work on the massive mural project in the Palacio Nacional, and he marries Frida Kahlo.
Academic question: Assuming that this photograph itself is the humanities art object we are considering now, how do the various elements you see in it (the room and the photograph) make a coherent whole? Indeed, do they?