Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

In this essay Gervasio Guillot Muñoz is displayed as a writer that was rather akin to twentieth century French culture as he wrote about the European cultural malaise during the interwar period. He wrote particularly regarding the crisis manifested [...]

This anonymous article mentions three important events in the Uruguayan visual arts calendar in 1940: the exhibition of French painting, the Salón Municipal de Artes Plásticas, and the critiques of the Salón Nacional de Artes Plásticas. These [...]

The avant-garde journal Los Nuevos was created in Montevideo in 1919 in an attempt to renew the European roots of literary modernism. The first issue contains an article on the life and work of French sculptor Auguste Rodin. The text asserts that [...]

The article “La pintura francesa en el Pabellón de Bellas Artes”[French Painting at the Fine Arts Pavilion] by Baldomero Sanín Cano describes the Exposición de arte francés [Exhibition of French Art] (1928) held at the Parque de Bolívar in [...]

This text written by the art critic Roberto Guevara is the preface to the catalogue for the exhibition Pinturas, which exhibited work by the French artist Marcel Floris, who had been living in Caracas since 1950. The exhibition was held at the Museo [...]

This brief introductory text by Carlos Rodríguez Saavedra was written for the official catalogue of the painting competition organized by the Festivales de Ancón, then an elegant resort on the outskirts of Lima. In a lyrical tone, the author [...]

In this essay Juan Ríos discusses De Manet a nuestros días, the exhibition of French painting organized by the Municipalidad de Lima in the early 1950s. His review summarizes the origins of modern French art, taking Manet’s work as its focal [...]

In this article César Moro discusses De Manet a nuestros días, the exhibition of French painting organized by the Municipalidad de Lima. The poet and artist describes French painting as “the best” in the world because of the fusion that [...]

In this article Jorge Falcón reviews De Manet a nuestros días, the exhibition of French painting that opened at the Municipalidad de Lima on March 15, 1950. According to the writer and militant communist, the exhibition’s local reception—which [...]

This review of the 1940 Exposição de Arte Francesa at the Museu Nacional de Belas Artes in Rio de Janeiro discusses the “backwardness” of Brazilian art compared to its European counterpart. By presenting over a hundred years of French art— [...]

The critic and playwright Edgardo Pérez Luna reviews the exhibition of works by the French artist Jean Dewasne presented at the Galería de Lima in October 1954. According to the reviewer, in Dewasne’s works, which are not at all figurative, the [...]

In this essay Pedro Emilio Coll replies to Latin American critics who, “in the name of tradition and good sense” deplore what they describe as decadent representatives of the new movements that took root in the Americas in the early twentieth [...]

In his essay on Cartier-Bresson’s exhibition, Julio Torri attempts to define the outstanding features of the French photographer’s work. He finds that, far from cluttering his views with smokestacks or skyscrapers, Cartier-Bresson focuses on [...]

Damián Bayón provides a far-reaching reading of Cubism on the basis of an exhibition held at the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris that ran from February to April 1953. Before delving into specific concerns, he explains the overall perspective of his [...]

This article describes the activities in the French city of Bordeaux during “Mexican Week,” the event that was sponsored by the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes [INBA, National Institute of Fine Arts] and organized to present exhibitions of [...]

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 [...]

In this article Damián Bayón interviews art historian Pierre Francastel (1900–1970) regarding the problem of abstract art, based upon what Bayón read in [Francastel’s] books. Before beginning [the interview], he states that the questions he [...]

In this article Damián Bayón comments on an exhibition of work drawn from museums in Berlin, which was held at the Petit Palais in Paris. Based on his observations of the European public, Bayón states that the way “to recognize the superior [...]

In this interview Poty, the artist-illustrator, discusses recent exhibitions of contemporary French art and what was called “degenerate art” [Entartete Kunst] during the Nazi Third Reich in Germany.  He talks about the socio-political aspect of [...]

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 text states that on December 23, 1968, the French newspaper Nouvel Observateur reported that the artists selected by art critic Gérard Gassiot-Talabot had declined to participate because of the French political situation several months after the [...]

The text informs the Italian press that in the meeting which took place on October 15 and 16, 1975, it was agreed among the artists representing Argentina, Brazil, Chile, France, Italy, the Netherlands and Uruguay to constitute the Fronte [...]

Text in which Julio Le Parc expresses his disagreement with the Denise René L’intrépide [Denise René: The Intrepid] title, because it refers to an exhibition in which the works were not made by the art-dealer but by the artists, who deserved [...]

The program for the Une journée dans la rue [One day on the street] action plan points out the different places around the city where activities, which will seek the participation of the inhabitants, will be carried out. The proposal emphasizes that [...]

Under the title “Basta de mistificaciones” [Enough with the mystifications] the Groupe de Recherche d’Art Visuel (GRAV) [Visual Arts Research Group] signed a manifesto that would become the basis of the present-day relationship between [...]

The text sets out the general proposals of the GRAV (Groupe de Recherche d’Art Visuel) [Experimental Visual Arts Research Group] with respect to the relationships between the artist and society, the traditional value of visual art, as well as the [...]

In this article, Margarita Nelken looks back over Alice Rahon’s career. Nelken explains that Rahon, the French artist who straddled between both Surrealist painting and Surrealist poetry, had shaken off her father’s aesthetic influence [...]

In this interview, David Alfaro Siqueiros associates Rufino Tamayo with the formalism of the School of Paris, with the snobbish, bourgeois attitude of those who opposed political art. He acknowledges the sense of color and synthesis in Tamayo’s [...]

José Clemente Orozco believed that opposition to political painting was nothing new in Mexico; it had been around since the start of the mural movement. Some painters tried to stamp out all forms of figurative or representative expression. When [...]

André Breton is interviewed before his trip to Mexico, due to the great deal of anticipation caused by his forthcoming visit. The French poet declares that this trip “crystallizes a beautiful dream and a long deferred wish,” since Mexico has [...]

The author describes in detail the Mexican Pavilion at the International Fair in Paris. He emphasizes the fact that the first image that the visitors encounter upon entering the pavilion is that of Quetzalcóatl, a wise and pacific Aztec god. One can [...]

A text by Pellegrini which introduces the translation, which he himself wrote, of a text by the French poet Antonin Artaud. He points out that nobody other than this author has lived through the paroxysm of the most extreme questions a human being [...]

This article by Atalaya reflects upon a text written by Guillermo de Torre entitled “Madrid, meridiano intelectual de Hispanoamérica” [Madrid: Intellectual Meridian of the Spanish Americas], published in La Gaceta Literaria [Literary Gazette] in [...]

Baciu produces a panorama of the work by French painter Jean Charlot, from his early links to his country’s avant-garde and his integration into the first Mexican muralist movement, through to his relationships with the Estridentista movement and [...]

In his article the poet from Monterrey, Rafael Lozano, refers to the leaders of Dadaism: Tristan Tzara in Zurich, Switzerland and Francis Picabia in New York. He hopes sarcastically that the tenets of Dadaism will be sung just like the French [...]

Diego Rivera speaks at length to the newspaper Excélsior on learning that President Miguel Alemán’s administration has refused to send his mural to the 1952 Paris Exhibition. In the first place, Rivera claims that the government has ridden [...]

María Elena Sodi de Pallares discusses the inconsistency shown by the INBA (Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes) while sponsoring a mural by Diego Rivera to be displayed at the Paris exhibition, but then decided not to submit it after all when the [...]

This brief article, which was probably excerpted from an anonymous interview with Diego Rivera, reports that if no solution can be found to the problems that have arisen between the painter and Carlos Chávez, the Director of the INBA (Instituto [...]

In 1927, Xavier Villaurrutia attempted an assessment of the Mexican art movement using Diego Rivera’s career as a timeline, since he considered Rivera’s history to be the least boring. Villaurrutia claims that, although the genre of painting that [...]