In 1931, the Museum of Modern Art commissioned Diego Rivera to provide one of its galleries with five portable murals that were the subject of a five-week exhibition.

Now after 80 years in storage, the murals are being re-hung, along with three other New York-themed pieces made at the same time. “People think of this as a museum of Matisse and Picasso.

They don’t think of Rivera as a lion of the institution,” says Leah Dickerman, the curator of the department of painting and sculpture.

Considering his relative youth (he was 45 at the time), his nationality and political leanings, Rivera was a radical choice for the new institution, she says.