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[Letter] Al Comité Central del Partido Comunista del Uruguay
1933While stating his unflinching loyalty to the communist cause, David Alfaro Siqueiros also provides some important autobiographical information in this letter to the Uruguayan Communist Party Central Committee. He talks about being under house arrest [...]ICAA Record ID: 1238917 -
A quienes lucharon por mi libertad con mi más profundo reconocimiento
1964After spending four years in prison in Mexico for an obscure “crime of social dissolution,” Siqueiros was released in July 1964. He then wrote this letter to all the friends in various parts of the world who had demanded his freedom. In [...]ICAA Record ID: 1238740 -
[Letter] 1934 Enero 11, Isla de Trinidad [to] Blanca Luz Brum
1934In this letter, David Alfaro Siqueiros tells Blanca Luz Brum that the Troubadour—the ship on which he sailed from Buenos Aires in December 1933—had arrived in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. Siqueiros talks about the book he wrote on the trip [...]ICAA Record ID: 1238692 -
Los vehículos de la pintura dialéctico-subversiva : Experiencias técnicas del Bloque de Pintores (Sección Los Ángeles)
1932This is a typewritten copy of the lecture given by David Alfaro Siqueiros at the John Reed Club in Hollywood on September 2, 1932. Siqueiros talks about the creation of what he called the Los Angeles “Mural Painters’ Block” [BPM: Bloque de [...]ICAA Record ID: 1238676 -
[Letter] [1933, Junio?], Buenos Aires [to] Blanca Luz Brum
1933Other than the intimate details of the communication between Siqueiros and Brum, this letter provides extremely interesting insights into Siqueiros’s public relations in Buenos Aires, as well as his opinions and intentions concerning the local [...]ICAA Record ID: 1238660 -
Noticia de D. A. Siqueiros
1940This article quotes comments made by David Alfaro Siqueiros about contemporary art (in 1940) that appeared in the Mexican magazine Romance (a popular magazine in Latin America). Seven years after his visit to the Río de la Plata region, Siqueiros [...]ICAA Record ID: 1223640 -
Hacia la plástica integral por medio de la revolución
1934In this article, Mexican muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros explains his vision of art history which, in his view, wavers between moments of socialization (or social integration) and moments of individualism (or decadence). It is on those grounds that [...]ICAA Record ID: 1208204 -
Rectificaciones sobre las artes plásticas en México
1974In "Rectificaciones sobre las artes plásticas en México," Mexican Muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros states his opinions on a variety of polemical issues in Mexican and Latin American artistic practice. He proposes a reform of the system of arts [...]ICAA Record ID: 1126273 -
La escultura policromada : así lo presentó ante el mundo artístico el mexicano David Alfaro Siqueiros
1995In this lucid text, Mexican mural artist David Alfaro Siqueiros describes Colombian sculptor Rodrigo Arenas Betancourt, a young man at the time, as a talented artist and pioneer of sculpture in Mexico. Siqueiros explains that Betancourt Arenas’s [...]ICAA Record ID: 1100301 -
A Siqueiros, al partir
1961This printed poster is divided into two parts. In the upper left-hand corner, a black-and-white photograph shows a close-up of a man behind bars looking straight ahead. In the background there is a two-story structure with white walls. To the right [...]ICAA Record ID: 864589 -
Respuesta de los artistas al llamamiento del Partido Comunista Mexicano
1950David Alfaro Siqueiros, Diego Rivera, Xavier Guerrero and José Chávez Morado led the call for Mexican artists to orient their artistic production to the guidelines of social realism. They responded “. . . by rejecting the theories and formalist [...]ICAA Record ID: 822760 -
El arte al servicio del proletariado
1931Given the circumstances of the time, David Alfaro Siqueiros advocated that art should be transparent and dedicated to the struggle; it should be a tool for propaganda that was also open to technical innovation. In his opinion, pure art should wait [...]ICAA Record ID: 822471 -
El movimiento actual de la pintura en México : Los Retardatarios.- El Clasicismo.- El Academismo y sus falsas glorias.- La Anarquía.- El Nacimiento del “MEXICANISMO”
1923This is the third of four articles on the nature of the current painting movement in Mexico. It classifies those painters and writers as retrogressive, who continue to paint under outdated and foreign influences without contributing to the local [...]ICAA Record ID: 815219 -
El movimiento actual de la pintura en México : El egoísmo individualista
1923This is the second of four articles on the nature of the current Mexican painting movement. The article concerns the celebrated individuality that incites our painters, given the supposition that originality is a painter’s greatest asset. The [...]ICAA Record ID: 815200 -
El movimiento actual de la pintura en México
1923This is the first of a four-part article on the technical nature of the Mexican painting movement. Violent aesthetic transformations had occurred in the last few years while art criticism against painters oscillated between grand praise and fury. [...]ICAA Record ID: 815178 -
Protestas por el cargo dado a Mathías Goeritz : Diego Rivera y Alfaro Siqueiros censuran el nombramiento
1954The newspaper Excélsior reproduces an open letter to Nabor Carrillo, rector of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico, signed by both Diego Rivera and David Alfaro Siqueiros, putting into question UNAM’s choice of Mathí [...]ICAA Record ID: 805250 -
3 llamamientos de orientación actual a los pintores y escultores de la nueva generación americana
1921With his manifesto, David Alfaro Siqueiros sought to position the avant-garde project anew, doing away with belated modernism and impressionism, in favor of Cubo-Futurist expressions and the incipient eruption of Dadaism. This eagerness for [...]ICAA Record ID: 801659 -
Hacia una nueva plástica integral
1948This article by David Alfaro Siqueiros is a theoretical analysis of the Mexican muralist movement, whose principal characteristic (and what differentiated it from the rest of the international trends) was its “functional political purpose.” [...]ICAA Record ID: 799548 -
Plan de trabajo para el Centro Médico (IMSS)
1958The initial title that David Alfaro Siqueiros proposed for the mural he painted at Centro Medico Nacional [the National Medical Center] was Apología de la futura victoria de la ciencia médica sobre el cáncer. Paralelismo Histórico entre la [...]ICAA Record ID: 796086 -
Contrato para la ejecución de una pintura mural que celebra por una ...
1951The Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social (IMSS) [Mexican Institute of Social Security] was created at the beginning of the hospital construction project; it was a decentralized entity with legal status located in the nation’s capital. Although [...]ICAA Record ID: 796041 -
Tres llamamientos de orientación actual a los pintores y escultores de la nueva generación americana
1921Based in a progressive perspective, in a future with an “increasingly superior” art, the declaration that David Alfaro Siqueiros wrote in Barcelona sought to facilitate the incorporation of certain elements of the American continent into avant- [...]ICAA Record ID: 794607 -
Un acontecimiento, una opinión : el XXIII Salón como expresión social
1933David Alfaro Siqueiros expresses harsh opinions about the works exhibited at the XXIII Salón de Bellas Artes [23rd Salon of Fine Arts], in Buenos Aires, taking into account its social background. The first prize was awarded to Lino Enea Spilimbergo [...]ICAA Record ID: 789957 -
Un llamamiento a los plásticos argentinos
1933Siqueiros calls for the organization of a movement of monumental visual arts in order to bring to the fore social reality. By means of it, he promotes the unionization of artists [...]ICAA Record ID: 789914 -
La arquitectura internacional a la zaga de la mala pintura
1954In forty paragraphs, David Alfaro Siqueiros outlines the process of artistic integration of Mexican architecture and painting that produced the Ciudad Universitaria, the Presidente Juárez Apartment Blocks and the Museo Experimental El Eco. For [...]ICAA Record ID: 786079 -
Rivera´s counter-Revolutionary road
1934David Alfaro Siqueiros has no intention of providing a monographic analysis of Diego Rivera’s mural, Retrato de América [Portrait of America], or an academic assessment of Rivera’s faults or opportunism. According to Siqueiros, a critique should [...]ICAA Record ID: 786072 -
Carta a Jorge Enciso
1944In a letter to Jorge Enciso, addressed to the Dirección de Monumentos Nacionales [National Monuments Administration], Siqueiros announces that Javier Rojo Gómez has commissioned him to paint murals in the tower of what was known as the former [...]ICAA Record ID: 786065 -
Memorial al señor arquitecto Carlos Lazo : gerente general de las obras en la ciudad universitaria : sobre el problema de mis murales en la rectoría y en la Facultad de Ciencias Químicas
1953David Alfaro Siqueiros sends the architect Carlos Lazo, project manager at Ciudad Universitaria (UNAM) in Mexico City, three documents about the scaffolding he has erected and the mural he is executing at the university’s Rectoría [President’s [...]ICAA Record ID: 786058 -
Siqueiros rompe con el director de la Escuela Universitaria de Bellas Artes de San Miguel Allende : donde ejecuta un mural y le lanza gravísimas acusaciones que conmovieron al sector intelectual del país
1949The mural being painted by David Alfaro Siqueiros at the Escuela Universitaria de Bellas Artes in San Miguel Allende would be interrupted by disagreements with the school’s director, Alfredo Campanella. The director offers Siqueiros a change in his [...]ICAA Record ID: 786052 -
[Letter] 1938 Abril 27, [España to] María Teresa León, [México]
1938David Alfaro Siqueiros writes a letter to Teresa León from a military command post in Spain during the Civil War, telling her of his combat experiences at the front and comparing procedures there with artistic work. He sees that in both there are [...]ICAA Record ID: 786046 -
[Letter] 1925 Junio 17, México [a] Secretario de Educacion Puig Cassauranc
1925David Alfaro Siqueiros sent a letter to the Minister of Public Education, José Manuel Puig Cassauranc, when he was dismissed from his ministry job as professor of drawing and manual works, for which he was paid three pesos a day. His dismissal was [...]ICAA Record ID: 786037 -
Un llamamiento a las Plásticas Argentinas
1933David Alfaro Siqueiros explains that he is working with other painters and sculptors in Argentina and Uruguay to create a monumental visual arts movement for the masses. His goal is to remove works of art from museums, cemeteries, and private [...]ICAA Record ID: 786031 -
Con Siqueiros
1952In this interview, David Alfaro Siqueiros states that in the exhibition Arte mexicano: desde tiempos precolombinos hasta nuestros días [Mexican Art: From Pre-Colombian Times to Our Days], contemporary Mexican painting had generated both supportive [...]ICAA Record ID: 780039 -
Aclaración del C. de Defensa Proletaria
1928The Comité de Defensa Proletaria [Committee for the Defense of the Proletariat] wrote to the editorial board of El Machete magazine regarding the reports published in the press about the events organized by the Bloque Obrero [Workers’ Block] in [...]ICAA Record ID: 776692 -
Crítica a la crítica del Arte : A propósito de un reciente artículo de Margarita Nelken sobre la obra total de Diego Rivera
1949In his long essay, Siqueiros defends Diego Rivera’s work in response to Margarita Nelken’s article on the latter’s retrospective exhibition at Bellas Artes published in the latest issue of Cuadernos Americanos. He accuses Nelken of being “ [...]ICAA Record ID: 774903 -
Diego Rivera pintor de cámara del gobierno de México
1935David Alfaro Siqueiros attacks the implacable enemy of the Liga de Escritores y Artistas Revolucionarios (LEAR) [League of Revolutionary Writers and Artists], the Trotskyite Diego Rivera, “leader and supporter of the Fourth International in Mexico [...]ICAA Record ID: 774385 -
No hay mas ruta que la nuestra : Importancia nacional e internacional de la pintura mexicana moderna
1945This is a collection of articles by David Alfaro Siqueiros in which he restates the principles of an art about war, linking it to the great artistic traditions expressed in the work of artists such as Dr. Atl, José Clemente Orozco, and Diego Rivera [...]ICAA Record ID: 774358 -
Siqueiros acusa a Tamayo y Tamayo le responde así
1951HOY magazine thought that the long-running controversy between mural painters and abstract painters was old news. The simmering dispute had, however, recently boiled over into an open argument between Tamayo and Siqueiros, so the magazine asked both [...]ICAA Record ID: 768074 -
Un ensayo de pintura colectiva
1940Romance magazine invited the Mexican artist David Alfaro Siqueiros to discuss his theoretical ideas about painting’s essential problems. At the time, he was finishing the mural at the Sindicato Mexicano de Electricistas de la Ciudad de México [ [...]ICAA Record ID: 765725 -
La ofensiva contra los comunistas : Arbitrario cese del compañero Siqueiros
1925The article reproduces a letter from David Alfaro Siqueiros to José Manuel Puig Casauranc, the Minister of Public Education (SEP) regarding the painter’s dismissal from his position as professor of drawing and manual crafts on June 10, 1925. [...]ICAA Record ID: 764177 -
El Sindicato de pintores y escultores combatirá en “El Machete”
1924In this brief article, Siqueiros, the secretary of the Sindicato de Pintores y Escultores [SOTPE, Painters and Sculptors Union], reports that the painters laid off from their work on public buildings due to the machinations of “reactionary” [...]ICAA Record ID: 764085 -
Los catedráticos reaccionarios inculcan a la juventud ideas contrarias a la revolución que por lástima les sigue dando de comer : Los murciélagos y las momias pretenden impedir el desarrollo de las pinturas revolucionarias
1924Act two, scene one of this farce is entitled “The mummies and the bats give their opinion on revolutionary paintings.” Some of the names of the figures from the prior scene are repeated, although this time, they are divided: fresh and dried [...]ICAA Record ID: 764078 -
Dos casos de violación al derecho de propiedad
1924The author condemns the double standard with which two property rights cases were adjudicated. Siqueiros compares the destruction of the offices of La revista de Yucatán [Yucatan Magazine] by an angry crowd to the attack by a group of dentistry [...]ICAA Record ID: 764072 -
El jurado de los intelectuales enemigos del pueblo : continuación de la farsa “La caída de los ricos y la construcción del nuevo orden social
1924Act one, scene two of this farce is entitled “A jury [to try] the reactionary intellectuals and capricious intellectual revolutionaries.” The figures to be judged and the extras, as well as the wailing chorus, have the actual names of numerous [...]ICAA Record ID: 764063 -
Si los trabajadores no ponen el remedio, seguirán despilfarrando los diputados seis millones de pesos al año, en automóviles, en gasolina, en coñac, en prostitutas y en tiros disparados al aire
1924The author appeals to workers and peasants so that they may learn to carefully elect their representatives to the Lower House, and eliminate the thieves and lawmakers bon vivants who squander for their own benefit six and a half million pesos of [...]ICAA Record ID: 764057 -
En el orden burgués reinante hay que buscar la causa de la decadencia arquitectónica contemporánea
1924In this document David Alfaro Siqueiros reflects upon the nexus between society and its aesthetic production, particularly with regard to the status of architecture under the bourgeois order. The article is directed toward the officials in charge of [...]ICAA Record ID: 764051 -
A los soldados, a los obreros y a los campesinos : Los tres somos víctimas, los tres somos hermanos : Farsa en varios actos titulada : La caída de los ricos y la construcción de un nuevo orden social
1924Following the prologue to the farce “The Fall of the Rich and the Construction of a New Social Order,” is a scene in the first act entitled, “The Army of the Soldiers, Workers and Peasants.” In a triumphal panorama of the socialist revolution [...]ICAA Record ID: 764028 -
La Trinidad de los sinvergüenzas : Prólogo de la farsa titulada: La caída de los ricos y la construcción del nuevo orden social
1924This farce was written in verse and consists of a prologue and four parts. The action takes place in Mexico City. On a throne of clouds rests a trinity: a Mexican politician, “the father devil;” a European capitalist, “the grateful son;” and [...]ICAA Record ID: 764016 -
Un acontecimiento, una opinión : la pintura en el XXIII Salón
1933David Alfaro Siqueiros critiques the paintings of the 23rd Fine Arts Salon (Buenos Aires) as works imitative of past European painting. The artist defines the event as a colonial art show, with gullible themes and devoid of technique, as well as with [...]ICAA Record ID: 763426 -
Al margen del manifiesto del Sindicato de Pintores y Escultores
1924This document analyzes the national repercussions that the Sindicato de Obreros Técnicos, Pintores y Escultores [SOTPE, Union of Technical Workers, Painters and Sculptors] had on an art scene that was then dominated by individualism. Siqueiros [...]ICAA Record ID: 763287 -
Diego M. Rivera pintor de América
1921David Alfaro Siqueiros begins his article by saying that for all the moving cosmopolitanism of this modern painter’s creations, Diego Rivera’s œuvre is essentially Mexican. Siqueiros claims that it is a huge mistake to classify true Mexican [...]ICAA Record ID: 760474