Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

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 [...]

The article is a review of the Exposición de arte mexicano [Exhibition of Mexican Art] that was held at the Hospital Juárez. It included paintings, sculpture, and engravings by Mexican artists such as Diego Rivera, Roberto Montenegro, Carlos Orozco [...]

This article is a review of the exhibition of 19th- and 20th-century Jalisco painting that took place at the Palacio de Bellas Artes in the capital of Mexico. The exhibition included works by José María Estrada, Dr. Atl, Roberto Montenegro, José [...]

This article is a complaint by José María García Ascot against the authorities of the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes (INBA), which had just published a catalog with an image of the eighteen works sent to represent Mexico in the XXIX Venice [...]

This article reports on the activities at the Museo Regional del Estado de Jalisco [Regional Museum of the State of Jalisco], in Guadalajara. Among other news, it mentions the creation of a Sala de Cartografía [Cartography Room] that displays an [...]

José Guadalupe Zuno (Z) devotes this entire article to mural paintings in Jalisco, having commissioned some of them himself while he was governor. Zuno makes particular reference to the murals in the Salón de la Universidad that were painted by [...]

In this document José Gorostiza analyzes the works of eight artists who participated in the Pintores mexicanos modernos [Modern Mexican Painters] exhibition organized by Carlos Mérida and Carlos Orozco Romero for the brewery, Carta Blanca. He [...]

Carlos Mérida reports that given the global importance that Mexican painting has taken on and the interest generated by its evolution, the Departamento del Distrito Federal [DDF, Mexico City-City Hall] founded an art gallery to exhibit works by [...]

Justino Fernández attempts to establish a concept of  “arte mexicano,” pointing out that no expression is more valid than any other when rating it as “Mexican.” The critic considers that a whole complex historical expression, which shows [...]

Toward the end of the 1930s, Carlos Orozco Romero was nearly the last living representative of the generation that founded the Centro Bohemio de Guadalajara [Bohemian Center of Guadalajara]. Despite the fact that his career had been headed more [...]

Carlos Mérida starts this lecture by commenting on the effort made by U.S. artists to found a center for the Union Artists Gallery, which would surely lay the foundation for the future of art in the United States. He notes the close affinity between [...]

The article covers the exhibition organized by the Galería de Arte Moderno in celebration of its first anniversary. The author comments on the Mexican capital’s vocation toward art, both in terms of diffusion and stimulus. He also mentions some of [...]

 Carlos Mérida comments that in Mexico xylography [wood engraving] has become the prevalent artistic trend of the time. He describes some characteristics of this technique, such as the use of pure contrast between light and dark. On the other hand [...]

For the author, the purpose of artistic movements, the so-called “revolutionary” movements, was to suppress academies in order to achieve aesthetic freedom and open up the horizon toward plurality. It is the author’s opinion that in Mexico, [...]

The article suggests that only a few isolated painters existed in Mexico before 1930. Nevertheless, the text points out that by the time of the article’s publication Mexican painting already existed as a movement, shaped by indigenous art, although [...]

Diego Rivera briefly reviews what he sees in the artists of the period and discusses the various trends in artistic expression in Mexico at the time, indicating his preference for murals with a nationalist theme. He claims that painters and the [...]

The art critic Anita Brenner claims that Carlos Orozco’s caricatures are known even in New York. The article does not explain how they came to be published in The Nation and The Art Center Bulletin. Brenner supports her thesis by quoting Walter [...]