Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

With 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 [...]

After discussing how busy Germán List Arzubide—the Estridentista from old times—kept in New York’s workers’ media, Ben Ossa mentions the ideas suggested to LEAR by the “Congreso de Artistas Americanos (de Estados Unidos)” [American [...]

In this short article by Antonio Rodríguez, the art critic shows his support for an article published in the previous issue of the journal Espacios by the artist Roberto Berdecio, in defense of “social painting.” Rodríguez believes that “ [...]

While this article mounts a defense of Mexican painting with “human/social content,” it also admits that this art has entered into a “period of crisis or, if you will, reorientation.” In today’s artwork, Berdecio sees “unmistakable signs [...]

Given the recent re-opening of the Museo Nacional de Arte Moderno at the Palacio de Bellas Artes, the writer Francisca Olivos asks and, at the same time, answers: “Does it respond to Mexican painting as we know it and as it has been until now? [...]

The invitation to the ceremony introducing the David Alfaro Siqueiros mural Por una seguridad completa y para todos los mexicanos [For a Complete Safety for All Mexicans] is a document of value for its graphic design. It represents the crowning [...]

Journalist Julio Scherer conducted an interview with David Alfaro Siqueiros in which their conversation covered the technique the artist applied and the subject matter he explored in the Centro Médico Nacional mural: cancer. Scherer asked why he had [...]

A letter dated June 10, 1958, from Maria Luisa Mendoza to Fernando Gamboa (who was in Brussels at the time) took the form of a progress report. Mendoza, a consultant on the art integration project Centro Médico Nacional [National Medical Center], [...]

The inauguration of David Alfaro Siqueiros’ mural at the Hospital de La Raza [Hospital of the People] in Mexico City on March 18, 1955, mobilized the press and art critics of the era. The iconography explored by the artist and the physical [...]

David Alfaro Siqueiros’ painting at the recently constructed “Hospital de La Raza” [“Hospital of the People”] grabbed the attention of the public and art specialists. The novelty of the topic and the physical characteristics of the [...]

In this essay, Tomas Ybarra-Frausto focuses on the heart as an important symbol in Chicano art. Divided into two sections: “Themes and Variations” and “Maintenance and Extension of Traditions,” he argues that the “moral dimension” of [...]

As vice-president of the Frente Nacional de Artes Plásticas (FNAP) [National Front for the Visual Arts], David Alfaro Siqueiros makes the latest resolution of the group known. To wit: “to immediately initiate a national campaign directed at the [...]

The painter and engraver Fanny Rabel directs an ironic, open letter to Diego Rivera because of the declarations he had made four months earlier in the same publication. [See doc. no. 794985] In the name of the young generations, Rabel asks Rivera if [...]

Vicente Lombardo Toledano states that without judging the political significance of the construction of Ciudad Universitaria (UNAM campus), the purpose of his article is to note certain errors in that project. Although they are minor, these errors [...]

Luis Islas García brings up an issue that is seldom addressed about the modern Ciudad Universitaria (UNAM campus): the visual arts integration executed by Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, José Chávez Morado, and Juan O’Gorman. He states [...]

In this document, Diego Rivera discusses the details of his conflict with David Alfaro Siqueiros; that is, the international campaign orchestrated by the Stalinist leadership to discredit Rivera for his Trotskyite militancy and for his financial [...]

In this article, painter María Izquierdo again decides to express her viewpoint without the use of intermediaries. She had done so one month before and here she again declares her disapproval of the monopoly created by the Comisión Nacional de [...]

After reviewing Orozco’s early work (drawings, prints, caricatures, and watercolors) and mentioning the influence of El Greco, Giotto, Goya, and Toulouse-Lautrec, Octavio Paz refers to a "hermetic or symbolic" trend to which the [...]

This document is the first section of Margarita Nelken’s book Pintores de México [Painters of Mexico], which she wrote by commission of the Secretaría de Educación Pública [SEP, Ministry of Public Education]. Nevertheless, it was never [...]

This document is the script for the documentary Pintura Mural Mexicana [Mexican Mural Painting], to be produced by Manuel Barbachano Ponce’s company, Tele-producciones. The documentary was made in response to a request from the Instituto Nacional [...]

The Nazi-affiliated nationalist newspaper Crisol [Melting pot] writes about the exhibition of Mexican artist David Alfaro Siqueiros that took place at Amigos del Arte [Friends of Art], a liberal institution that promotes the modernization of the [...]

Mario Canale criticizes a campaign organized as much by institutions dedicated to arts education, such as the Mutualidad de Estudiantes de Bellas Artes [Society of Fine Arts Students], as by Communist activists under the influence of David Alfaro [...]

Amaro Martínez presents an aesthetic and political critique of David Alfaro Siqueiros’s work and political agenda. The author defends art as an expression of man; he considers proletariat art absurd. At the same time that he defends the concept of [...]

This text, taken from the art-news section of Signo [Sign] magazine, run by the art critic Leonardo Estarico, briefly reports on the June 1933 exhibition of the Mexican painter David Alfaro Siqueiros at Amigos del Arte [Friends of Art], an event that [...]

This article describes the iconography and the technical resources used by the Coahuila painter, Xavier Guerrero, in his recent mural at the Escuela México in Chillán, “a small village in southern Chile.” The project sponsored by the Federal [...]

This article suggests that the paintings David Alfaro Siqueiros produced after 1936—that is, the ones he painted after traveling through South America and the United States—should be classified as being from a “third period.” Most of the [...]

This article reports on the "judicial inspection" of Historia del teatro en México [History of the Theater in Mexico], the mural painted by David Alfaro Siqueiros in the foyer of the Jorge Negrete theater, which belonged to the Asociación Nacional [...]

A short article in which the critic Raúl Flores Guerrero tries to mediate a dispute among journalists set off by José Luis Cuevas, who has taken a position against muralism. It is a brouhaha that has been already going on for a few months. Flores [...]

Regarding the exhibition and awards of the I Bienal Interamericana de Pintura y Grabado [First Inter-American Biennial of Painting and Printmaking] (1958), the criticism by the journalist Socorro García is negative, especially with respect to the [...]

In commemoration of the XV anniversary of the weekly magazine Hoy [Today], the Instituto de Bellas Artes (INBA) suggests the periodical publish a selection of images representing local painting throughout the ages. An article written by the critic [...]

According to this article, David Alfaro Siqueiros had just founded the Centro de Arte Realista [Center for Realist Art] that was intended to function as a “school” or “institute” in which research into techniques, pedagogical theory, geometry [...]

This article reviews the works recently exhibited by David Alfaro Siqueiros at the Pierre Matisse gallery in New York. These works show the painter—who “returned from Spain barely a year ago”—experimenting with new techniques, one of which [...]

In this article, Rufino Tamayo forges ahead in his controversy and confrontation with the so-called Mexican School of painting. He addresses David Alfaro Siqueiros, who had publicly defended José Clemente Orozco. Tamayo ironically refers to [...]

This is a review of the exhibition of modern Mexican art that the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes [INBA, National Institute of Fine Arts] sent to Bordeaux, France; it was subsequently shown in Paris and Milan, Italy. Jaime Torres Bodet, the [...]

David 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 [...]

The exhibition at Perls Gallery in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, presented Rufino Tamayo as one of the four great Mexican artists. His works were part of the great modernism and, unlike those of his colleagues, no Communist symbols could be found in [...]

Oswald de Andrade was invited by the American Contemporary Arts to give this lecture in São Paulo in 1944, in which he discusses the two characters he created for a series of novels (that was never completed) entitled Marco Zero. He used these [...]

The artist Flávio de Carvalho describes the circumstances that led to the founding of the CAM [Modern Artists Club] with the painters Emiliano Di Cavalcanti, Carlos Prado, and Antonio Gomide. He also discusses the events and activities that defined [...]

This review by Elena Poniatowska describes the contents of the Mexican Pavilion at the 1958 Brussels World’s Fair, focusing especially on the works of art exhibited. Underscoring the topic by using bold letters, the author of the article speaks in [...]

The journalist Luis Suárez complains about the selection of paintings made by the “International committee of experts designated by the general commissioners of the Pavilions of certain number of countries with some importance in modern art,” [...]

In 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 [...]

Eager to cultivate Mexico’s good name abroad, President Miguel Alemán made every effort to obtain the best results for the presentation in Paris of artwork created by his Mexican countrymen. Alemán wanted to make sure that this exhibition— [...]

Justino Fernández provides a roundup of the exhibitions going on in Paris at the same time as the Mexican exhibition in France. Comparing European painting with Mexican, he argues that from the beginning, Mexican painting developed its own language [...]

Alejandro Núñez Alonso addresses the significant impact of Mexican art abroad. Both European critics and the public had been pleased with this great exhibition—Arte Mexicano en Paris [Mexican Art in Paris], 1952—with a full panorama of Mexican [...]

The questionnaire consists of six questions concerning the importance of social art in Mexico. The questions are as follows: Do you believe that the function of art in our time is to deliver an eloquent message of social content to the people? Do you [...]

Carlos Chávez announces the opening of the Mexican art exhibition organized by the governments of Mexico and France, in which a very carefully selected collection of masterpieces would be presented, beginning with the pre-Cortés era and continuing [...]

The Mexican paintings included at the Venice Biennale generated such unanimous excitement among the critics and the European public that a request was immediately submitted to the Venice board of directors and the director of the exhibition to ship [...]

In this document Juan de la Cabada responds to Luis Cardoza y Aragón’s criticism of the first art exhibition organized by the Liga de Escritores y Artistas Revolucionarios (LEAR) [League of Revolutionary Writers and Artists]. At the same time de [...]

This newspaper article includes part of a lengthy lecture on Mexican mural painting that David Alfaro Siqueiros gave during a visit to Brazil. The artist mentions his involvement in the Mexican Revolution (1910–20), talks about working with the [...]

Juan B. Climent interviews Manuel Rodríguez Lozano, who leaves no doubt about his position regarding the figures of Diego Rivera and David Alfaro Siqueiros in Mexican art. Lozano talks about the need to vindicate the native figure stemming from [...]