Diego Rivera embarked on his artistic training in 1897 at the National Fine Arts School, and continued it in Europe where he became familiar with the avant-garde movements of the time and was able to experiment. Upon returning to México, he adapted what he had learned in Europe to the Mexican context, creating his own artistic language in a quest for a local style that would support and enrich the cultural polices being promoted by the then Minister of Education, José Vasconcelos. The Grinder, one of the works painted by Rivera on the first floor of the Ministry of Education between 1923 and 1924, is specifically associated with Potters, executed by the artist in the courtyard of the same institution in 1924, while, technically speaking, its voluminous forms, rotund figures and rounded, uninterrupted contours link it to Creation, Rivera’s first mural, executed in the National Preparatory School in 1922. One of Rivera’s typical early works, this piece, which is signed in the upper right hand and lower left-hand corners, entered the MUNAL in 1982 as part of its founding endowment.