Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

The National War Propaganda Department, on behalf of Cuba’s Ministry of National Defense, published the script of the lecture to be delivered by David Alfaro Siqueiros on May 8, 1943, in Havana. The script provides a summary of his life from 1909 [...]

This 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 [...]

In this text, the painter José Clemente Orozco states that the “Manifiesto del Sindicato” [the Painters and Sculptors Manifesto] is “extraordinarily important; its influence has been felt for two decades and younger painters have fought [...]

In 1944, David Alfaro Siqueiros wrote an open letter to José Clemente Orozco in which he admitted that he could identify the different stages of his work. Siqueiros begins by saying that an artist’s work is not an individual creation but the [...]

Inspired by the native talent of Mexican workers and peasants and their love of the visual arts, El Machete invited these two segments of their audience to be the sole participants in an ongoing drawing contest. The Sindicato de Pintores y Escultores [...]

In this biographical sketch, Loló de la Torriente defines the aspiration of David Alfaro Siqueiros as wanting to be recognized as a leader of socialist fighters rather than as a painter. The text is divided into four parts: Siqueiros, the man; the [...]

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 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” [...]

The article reports on the creation of the Asociación de Pintores y Escultores Independientes located at the Calle Reloj, 6 in Mexico City. Its members included the artists José Clemente Orozco, José María. Fernández Urbina, David Alfaro [...]

Using newspaper sources, Esther Acevedo explores the diverse ways in which different groups of artists and intellectuals arose during 1920-1924 around the concept of “what is national,” particularly in the visual arts. She also investigates 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 [...]

David Alfaro Siqueiros, writing in El Machete, invites the proletariat to discuss their problems. His goal is to counter the middle-class press, where the disenfranchised are unrepresented. The article explains that the walls of public buildings have [...]

The Manifesto of the Sindicato de Obreros Técnicos Pintores y Escultores (SOTPE) [Technical Workers, Painters, and Sculptors Union] was published in El Machete toward the end of June 1924. It was an attempt to warn the proletariat and the indigenous [...]

Leading with the opinions of Ricardo Gómez Robelo, Pedro Henríquez Ureña, and Julio Torri, the editorial section of the newspaper has become sensitive to the new mural art and has allowed those versed in the new art to have their say. The article [...]

The Sindicato de Pintores y Escultores [SOTPE, Union of Painters and Sculptors] protests the damages sustained to the paintings that “decorate” the Escuela Nacional Preparatoria. David Alfaro Siqueiros, Xavier Guerrero and Diego Rivera argue that [...]