Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

The Confederación Regional Obrera [Regional Workers Confederation] became involved in the dismissal of Vicente [Lombardo] Toledano, who was at that time Director of the Escuela Nacional Preparatoria [National Preparatory School] and a member of the [...]

This article about the work of painter José Clemente Orozco was written by the then-young writer Carlos Heredia Jasso, who enjoyed working in the biographical genre. He starts the piece with a portrait of the artist at work, seeking to decipher his [...]

This article denounces the director of the Escuela Nacional Preparatoria, Ángel Vallarino, for suspending, by order of the Secretario de Educación Pública [Minister of Public Education], a group of students. The students were suspended for [...]

In artistic circles in those days, according to Rufino Tamayo, anything that was not purely Mexican was roundly rejected, and works that reflected our own experience and personal expression were lavishly praised. This had its positive aspects, but it [...]

After criticizing the painters of the Escuela Nacional Preparatoria (ENP), the newspaper El Demócrata speaks of the triumphs Mexico achieved abroad, through singers, writers, and the architects during the Río de Janeiro Expo. These are our [...]

In the newspaper El Mundo, an anonymous writer urges people to make clear what side they’re on: whether with the painters of the Escuela Nacional Preparatoria (ENP) or against the motifs and dimensions presented there. While the matter was treated [...]

In an unsigned article published in El Demócrata, a Mexico City morning newspaper, the anonymous author expresses his opinion about the proposals made by El Heraldo, which had launched an energetic campaign against the murals in the Escuela Nacional [...]

On the orders of the Mexican Under Secretary of Education, Bernardo J. Gastélum (the office manager), confirmed the dismissal of all the Etridentista painters who—led by Diego Rivera—had painted murals on the walls of the annex of the SEP, the [...]

David Alfaro Siqueiros, José Clemente Orozco and Xavier Guerrero signed this article in which they refute the assertions published by the Federación de Estudiantes Preparatorianos [Federation of Preparatory Students] and they list, one after [...]

This document reports on the publication of a manifesto signed by the Comunista Estudiantil de la Escuela Nacional Preparatoria [Student Communist Group at the National Preparatory School], comprised of 151 members. It explains how a small minority [...]

Fernando Leal’s article talks about the dearth of art criticism, which uses different names to describe the movement: “al fresco decorations,” “national art,” “Cubism,” “revolutionary art,” “academic art,” and “Renaissance [...]

In an open letter to the newspaper, David Alfaro Siqueiros makes a number of statements about the article published in the same paper defending students’ rights in terms of the paintings at the Escuela Nacional Preparatoria (ENP). Siqueiros [...]

In this piece, the Federación de Estudiantes [Student Federation] declares the muralists’ paintings to be “bad caricatures.” The federation expressed outrage by an offensive statement issued by a group of painters led by Diego Rivera. The [...]

Along with a caricature by Miguel Covarrubias published in a special edition of El Universal Ilustrado, Renato Molina Enríquez focuses his article on the encaustic technique used by Diego Rivera. This allows Antonio Caso’s article to explain the [...]

Diego Rivera’s mural La Creación [The Creation] was unveiled during a showing at the amphitheater of the Escuela Nacional Preparatoria de México—with the assistance of the painter and the Minister of Public Education, José Vasconcelos. After [...]

Ernestine Evans reviews Diego Rivera’s murals, referring to their artistic and political values. In this introductory essay she discusses the murals at the Escuela Nacional Preparatoria, the SEP (Ministry of Public Education), and the School of [...]

Roberto de la Selva reviews Diego Rivera’s work and comments on the murals Rivera painted in the auditorium of the Escuela Nacional Preparatoria and at the SEP (Ministry of Public Education), both in Mexico City. De la Selva hints that these works [...]

Carlos Mérida considers that Mexican painting belongs to the Americas because the spirit of its ancestors floats anew all over the Indo-Hispanic land. The author believes that the development of Mexican painting is directed by traditional rules [...]

This article covers the discussion that took place in the Mexican House of Representatives regarding the university and the fine arts departments. After the debate, the Departamento de Bellas Artes [Fine Arts Department] was separated from the [...]

In this essay, Xavier Villaurrutia examines José Clemente Orozco’s paintings through a prism of dread. The writer contends that this dread, this sense of horror, though not the only feeling present in Orozco’s work, is almost always the dominant [...]

The poet Carlos Pellicer writes about a pair of Diego Rivera’s important works: the mural in the Auditorium at the Escuela Nacional Preparatoria, and the frescoes in the courtyard at the Palacio de Educación Pública. Rather than describe the [...]

Diego Rivera’s visual arts discourse echoes the ideas of José Vasconcelos in his mural La Creación [Creation], in which he expresses, within an abstract theme, a clear allusion to race through selected representative elements. These include the [...]

Diego Rivera describes the liberties he took when painting his mural La Creación [Creation], which expressed man’s relationship with the elements as a means of telling the prime history of Mankind. Rivera explains how he adapted his work to the [...]