Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

In this essay, Joaquín Torres García attempts to link this sociopolitical doctrine with that of modern art after presenting a succinct historical review starting from “primitive communism” up through the Marxist doctrine. He does so by [...]

This document is a letter sent by two Uruguayan intellectuals to David Alfaro Siqueiros, who had been held at Lecumberri jail in Mexico City since 1960; the letter was sent through the artist’s wife, Angélica Arenal. It was a message of solidarity [...]

Joaquín Torres García gave this lecture on David Alfaro Siqueiros and his mural painting at a time when several Argentinean artists who had worked closely with the Mexican painter in 1933—in particular Antonio Berni and Demetrio Urruchúa—were [...]

This 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 [...]

The Argentinean visual artist Antonio Berni frequently visited the city of Montevideo from 1938, producing various exhibitions; in this article, he expressed his social and political vision of mural art, attributing it with a “constructive” [...]

In this article, Luis Eduardo Pombo reveals himself as the first Uruguayan art critic to ideologically wrap himself in the aesthetics of David Alfaro Siqueiros. Generally, even the commentaries made by those intellectuals closest to the Mexican [...]

The Union of Visual Artists was part of the structure of the C.T.I.U. (Confederación de Trabajadores Intelectuales del Uruguay [Confederation of Intellectual Workers of Uruguay]) federation created in Montevideo at the request of David Alfaro [...]

In his famous “Manifiesto 1,” Joaquín Torres García repudiates the article published in the Confederación de Trabajadores Intelectuales del Uruguay’s journal Movimiento. Torres García’s text, in turn, occasioned “Contestando a Torres [...]

In 1933, Norberto Berdía compared David Alfaro Siqueiros’s visit to Montevideo with the return to Uruguay, in 1934, of artist Joaquín Torres García. In Berdía’s view, the two men represent diametrical positions: Torres García personifies “ [...]

This article by Juvenal Ortiz Saralegui formed part of the early debates in the leftist press in Uruguay on the relationship between art and politics, debates that largely ensued in the publication of the Confederación de Trabajadores Intelectuales [...]

Commentary by essayist Alejandro Lora Risco on the Mexican art show organized in Lima by La Crónica newspaper. From within the event’s massive audience, the author highlights the presence of the individuals most likely to read his text: Peruvian [...]

This is a review of the lecture given by David Alfaro Siqueiros—“La pintura mexicana moderna y el arte para la victoria”—at the ENBA (Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes) in Lima. It was billed as an explanation of the “true nature of the [...]

This is a newspaper review of “El arte para la victoria y la pintura mexicana moderna,” the lecture given by David Alfaro Siqueiros at the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes de Lima in March 1943. The painter and political activist informed his [...]

According to the author, this exhibition heralds “a magnificent advance” in Julia Codesido’s painting because “a different spirit inspires her latest compositions.” In his opinion, 1931 marks the end of her earlier phase and the beginning [...]

This article by Gustavo Valcárcel reports on the award that David Alfaro Siqueiros received at the XXV Biennale di Venezia held in 1950. It was, in the author’s view, only due to “sentimental French chauvinism” that Henri Matisse received [...]

Commentary by Luis Miró Quesada Garland on the Mexican art exhibition organized by La Crónica newspaper. The author begins by recognizing the quality of the exhibition as a holistic view on Mexican painting within the last few years. Nevertheless, [...]

After explaining that the exhibition includes recent works as well as others that have been shown on previous occasions, the reviewer states that the artist “captures a clearer and broader view of Peruvian landscapes, people, and customs than other [...]

This document is an essay by Jacinto Quirarte outlining key moments in the history of modern Mexican and Mexican-American art in the United States. It begins with a discussion of the Mexican School, detailing central figures, sociopolitical [...]

This document is an essay by Rupert Garcia that considers the educational and political potential of two distinct but contemporaneous modes of aesthetic practice—easel painting and muralism— championed by the artists of the School of Paris and [...]

This unsigned newspaper article [dated September 2, 1960,] comments on the detention in México of the painter David Alfaro Siqueiros. As a result, 90 Mexican visual artists withdrew from participating in the Second [Inter-American] Painting and [...]

In 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 [...]

In this introduction to her book En busca de lo propio, the art historian and critic Ivonne Pini sets forth her methodological principles and the basic questions that guided her research. First, the author states the need to undertake a study of [...]

In this extensive article, Spanish sculptor Jorge de Oteiza examines the connections between art from the Americas and art from Europe, urging American artists not to fall into a fanatical independence and eschew the essential influence of European [...]

In this document, Margarita Nieto details the influence of the School of Mexican Painting on the artistic production in the United States during the twenty-year period preceding World War II. She argues that contact between the two countries during [...]

This document is a 1977 calendar produced by the Movimiento Artístico Chicano (MARCH), which includes biographies and reproductions of works by twelve Chicago-area Chicano artists, one for each month. Significant dates in Chicano history are also [...]

Author Dorothy Chaplik provides an overview of the life and art of Alejandro Romero, a recognized Chicago-based Mexican painter and muralist. She traces his artistic career from his childhood in Tabasco and youth and Mexico City, when he first [...]

In this brief consideration of Alejandro Romero’s œuvre, author Victor A. Sorell discusses the impact of Chicago, Romero’s adopted home, on his works. Romero invokes the industrial ambience and architectural totems of this city in his pieces, [...]

In this text, Damián Bayón introduces a collection of essays on Latin American art with a broad overview of what he argues are the most critical issues when considering the historical and contemporary art of the region as a whole. He begins by [...]

This one-and-a-half column article written in 1944 by Colombian artist Ignacio Gómez Jaramillo precedes Mexican artist David Alfaro Siqueiros’s text, “Finalidad técnico-social del nuevo arte mural en América.” Together they comprise two [...]

This 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 [...]

Referencing such Latin American nations as Mexico, Brazil, Uruguay, and Venezuela, and the European nations of Spain and Italy, Venezuelan architect Carlos Raúl Villanueva examines certain artists and movements that in the aforementioned countries, [...]

In this essay, art historian Shifra M. Goldman addresses Chicano mural art in the United States, which began as an independent movement around 1970. Goldman discusses the influences of Mexican muralism, especially that of Los Tres Grandes, Diego [...]

The American art historian, Shifra M. Goldman, writes an analysis of what happened in Mexican art during the years 1955 to 1965. In her opinion, this decade was marked by a growing international trend and by the essentialist loss of both national and [...]

In this essay, Ricardo Romo discusses the vibrant tradition of Chicano muralism, proposing as his goals both an examination of the historical evolution of murals painted in borderland states across the United States (California, Arizona, New Mexico, [...]

In this catalogue essay, Victor Alejandro Sorell considers the 36-year career (spanning 1964–2000) of the Chicano artist Carlos Cortez, praising him as the “quintessential artist-reporter,” and emphasizing his virtuosity as a master printmaker [...]

In the symposium entitled Hacia otra ruta hacia Siqueiros [Towards Another Route Towards Siqueiros] and organized by Curare, Esther Acevedo presented a paper in which she dealt with landscapes in the work of David Alfaro Siqueiros. This facet of the [...]

Arguing that art history must always account for precedents and influences, art historian Jacinto Quirarte’s essay traces the way in which Mexican muralists influenced American artists during the 1930s. The author suggests that, in this case, [...]

According to Arnold Belkin, “the Canadian son of Mexican mural painting,” the imperialist policy of the United States of America toward Latin America, as well as the prevailing climate of repression there, prompted many Latin American artists to [...]

In this brief commentary, Puerto Rican artist Lorenzo Homar alludes to his displeasure at the use of the word “assassination” in a recently published article. He goes on to refer to the tempestuous lives of Mexican mural artist David Alfaro [...]

In the prologue to the catalogue of the 1935 exhibition of contemporary Mexican art, Mexican artist Jorge Juan Crespo de la Serna provides a brief overview of Mexican art from the time of the Mayans until the present. He asserts that Mexican art, [...]

This article is an interview with David Alfaro Siqueiros conducted by Raquel Tibol on the value of art criticism. Regarding the central question, Siqueiros identifies three types of criticism: the first, “the companion,” records the concepts that [...]

In 1948, many years after their relationship ended, Graciela Amador relates events from her life with David Alfaro Siqueiros in four articles. This fourth and last article tells how the governor of Jalisco, José Guadalupe Zuno invited Siqueiros to [...]

In 1948, many years after their relationship ended, Graciela Amador tells of events from her life with David Alfaro Siqueiros in this article. This second article (of four) describes the trip they took to Paris via New York; she relates nine days of [...]

In 1948, many years after their relationship ended, Graciela Amador tells of the events of her life with David Alfaro Siqueiros, in this article, the first in a series of four. This first article begins on January 6, 1918, when she met the painter; [...]

Painter Pascual Navarro refutes the views of anthropologist and artist Gilberto Antolínez regarding the proposed reforms in the Academia de Artes Plásticas y Aplicadas in Venezuela in 1945. He objects to Antolínez’s prejudice against foreign [...]

This essay by Tomás Ybarra-Frausto is included in the 1981 catalogue of selected works from the Mexican Museum in San Francisco, California. Ybarra-Frausto presents a historiography documenting the trajectory of Mexican American artistic traditions [...]

The 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 [...]

María Izquierdo describes the customs of the inhabitants of the small mining village of Chillán, Chile, which was damaged by a strong earthquake in January 1939. Mexico declared its support for Chile, presenting Chillán with the construction of [...]

This document is an interview between Ralph Maradiaga and Chicano muralist Chuy Campusano. It centers on the relationship between the Mexican and Chicano mural movements, their similarities and differences, as well as the influence of famous Mexican [...]

Artist, writer, and activist, Judy Baca analyzes the ideological function served by traditional forms of public art: monuments that commemorate dominant histories and confirm the power of the state and works that ultimately serve the interests of [...]