Almost all of Rivera's art told a story, many of which depicted Mexican society, the Mexican Revolution, or reflected his own personal social and political beliefs, and In the Arsenal is no different. The woman on the right side of this painting in Tina Modotti, an Italian photographer and revolutionary political activist, who is holding ammunition for Julio Antonio Mella, a founder of the internationalized Cuban communist party.
The Stanford Daily:
There is no word short of “spectacular” that better describes the experience of examining “Pan American Unity,” Diego Rivera’s 1940 mural, housed since 2021 at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA). The piece is the crux of SFMOMA’s soon-closing exhibition, “Diego Rivera’s America,” curated by James Oles and Maria Castro.
In 1932, Rivera was commissioned by Abby Aldrich Rockefeller and her husband John D. Rockefeller Jr. to paint a mural for the lobby of Rockefeller Center. Rivera kept the original, approved plan for the two outer sides of the mural but changed the inner panel to include a critique capitalism. This inner panel ultimately included: Lenin, prostitutes, and the upper class drinking alcohol and covered in signs of venereal disease.