Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

Joaquín Torres García gave this lecture on David Alfaro Siqueiros and his mural painting at a time when several Argentinean artists who had worked closely with the Mexican painter in 1933—in particular Antonio Berni and Demetrio Urruchúa—were [...]

This article quotes comments made by David Alfaro Siqueiros about contemporary art (in 1940) that appeared in the Mexican magazine Romance (a popular magazine in Latin America). Seven years after his visit to the Río de la Plata region, Siqueiros [...]

In this article, Mexican muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros explains his vision of art history which, in his view, wavers between moments of socialization (or social integration) and moments of individualism (or decadence). It is on those grounds that [...]

In a text on the drawings and prints of José Luis Cuevas written in 1985, the art historian Catalina Banko compares his work to that of the Mexican muralists in order to show the major differences between them. To accomplish this, the Venezuelan [...]

In this critical essay, historian Francisco Da Antonio discusses the indebtedness of artist Héctor Poleo to Mexican muralism in terms of form and pictorial technique. He also explores the way in which Poleo’s work differs from the aesthetic- [...]

“El surrealismo de Poleo” is the third of five chapters in Simón Noriega’s book La Pintura de Héctor Poleo. In the chapter’s third section, entitled “Poleo y la cultura figurativa de los años cuarenta”, Noriega reports that the [...]

In this text, critic Raúl Pereira asserts that the works by María Izquierdo on exhibit in Lima display “distinct personality, unquestionable artistic quality, and visual daring” as they delve into the motifs of Mexican folk art. The treatment [...]

This is a review of the lecture given by David Alfaro Siqueiros—“La pintura mexicana moderna y el arte para la victoria”—at the ENBA (Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes) in Lima. It was billed as an explanation of the “true nature of the [...]

This interview with painter and muralist Teodoro Núñez Ureta includes some biographical notes and photographs of his work space. Núñez Ureta asserts that the so-called “isms,” fruit of European decadence, contaminate painting in America. What [...]

This document is an essay by Rupert Garcia that considers the educational and political potential of two distinct but contemporaneous modes of aesthetic practice—easel painting and muralism— championed by the artists of the School of Paris and [...]

In the view of Brazilian historian Aracy Amaral, the widespread prejudice against art with a “conteudístico” (content-based) approach hinders twentieth-century production from tackling sociopolitical issues. From the thirties through the [...]

In this book, psychologist Jorge Nunes includes a series of interviews with Venezuelan painter César Rengifo. He delves into numerous aspects, some unpublished, of the life and work of the artist. Of the twenty-eight chapters that compose this book [...]

“El americanismo de los años 40 y la nueva vanguardia colombiana” [The Americanism of the 1940s and the New Colombian Avant-Garde], an essay by the historian Álvaro Medina, published in 1978, discusses the artistic languages inspired by the [...]

In the book Problemas sociales en las artes plásticas [Social Problems in the Visual Arts], the critic Walter Engel reviews different periods in the universal history of art, discussing how some cultures and artists depict social issues?such as [...]

This essay, written by the Colombian attorney and philosopher Francisco Posada, is divided into nine parts: (i) an untitled introduction; (ii) “Colonial Feudalism”; (iii) “Realism and Social Conflict”; (iv) “Painting”; (v) “The Current [...]

In this article, the Colombian writer and critic Luis Vidales evaluates aesthetic methods based on spiritual causality, as distinct from positivist doctrines that seek causality in external phenomena. He suggests that style—that is, the technical [...]

In this document, Margarita Nieto details the influence of the School of Mexican Painting on the artistic production in the United States during the twenty-year period preceding World War II. She argues that contact between the two countries during [...]

In this interview, Marcos Raya expresses his belief that young artists must “get out of their mental and real ghetto, the Mexican ghetto,” in order to advance in their art. They must, he says, “be part of the whole city of Chicago and still be [...]

Author Dorothy Chaplik provides an overview of the life and art of Alejandro Romero, a recognized Chicago-based Mexican painter and muralist. She traces his artistic career from his childhood in Tabasco and youth and Mexico City, when he first [...]

In this text, Damián Bayón considers the question: What qualities make art produced by Latin American artists Latin American? He begins by declaring that the art of Latin America becomes Latin American when an artist—because of his or her [...]

In her essay, Marta Traba launches an argument in five parts against nationalism in recent Latin American painting. In the first part, she identifies nationalism as the main problem with regard to contemporary painting. Although it poses as a path to [...]

In this interview, Fernando de Szyszlo states that the only painting tradition that exists is the European tradition, under the standards that emanated from Paris in the late 19th century, to which all other schools have been assimilated. Even “ [...]

Referencing such Latin American nations as Mexico, Brazil, Uruguay, and Venezuela, and the European nations of Spain and Italy, Venezuelan architect Carlos Raúl Villanueva examines certain artists and movements that in the aforementioned countries, [...]

In this essay, art historian Shifra M. Goldman addresses Chicano mural art in the United States, which began as an independent movement around 1970. Goldman discusses the influences of Mexican muralism, especially that of Los Tres Grandes, Diego [...]

In this 1956 article, Ignacio Gómez Jaramillo presents his interpretation of muralism in Mexico. He asserts that mural paintings of historical events serve as the pictorial expression of written subjects, thus showing the people milestones of their [...]

In June 1960, the exhibition, 3000 años de arte colombiano [3000 Years of Colombian Art], was held in Miami and Washington. The journal Lámpara [Lamp] (Bogotá, published 1952–85) printed a supplement with writings by the curators who performed [...]

In this essay, Alicia Gaspar de Alba reviews nine post-1990 exhibitions of Chicano art, all of which have sought to “materialize” Chicano/a from within the mainstream art museum, or as she calls it, the “master’s house.” The exhibitions [...]

In this essay, Victor Zamudio-Taylor explores the valorization of Mexico’s pre-Columbian roots as a key element in the development of cultural identity within the Chicano movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Inspired by the ideology of mexicanidad— [...]

In this catalogue essay, Victor Alejandro Sorell considers the 36-year career (spanning 1964–2000) of the Chicano artist Carlos Cortez, praising him as the “quintessential artist-reporter,” and emphasizing his virtuosity as a master printmaker [...]

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 [...]

The Aberlardo Rodríguez market was conceived as part of an urban development plan that would allow for the control of the itinerant commerce that encroached upon Mexico City downtown as well as the revaluation of the property within the zone. Its [...]

This essay praises the work of José Clemente Orozco and considers him one of the greatest painters in the world. Luis Cardoza y Aragón analyzes Orozco’s article step by step in a rather poetic manner. He mentions the great complexity of his work [...]

Arguing that art history must always account for precedents and influences, art historian Jacinto Quirarte’s essay traces the way in which Mexican muralists influenced American artists during the 1930s. The author suggests that, in this case, [...]

In a continuation of an article published in Artes Visuales in 1978, Carla Stellweg provides an overview of issues relevant to Chicano art and the diverse approaches artists use to negotiate such conditions. She further outlines how early Chicano [...]

In 1948, many years after their relationship ended, Graciela Amador tells of the events of her life with David Alfaro Siqueiros, in this article, the first in a series of four. This first article begins on January 6, 1918, when she met the painter; [...]

This is the third of four articles on the nature of the current painting movement in Mexico. It classifies those painters and writers as retrogressive, who continue to paint under outdated and foreign influences without contributing to the local [...]

This is the second of four articles on the nature of the current Mexican painting movement. The article concerns the celebrated individuality that incites our painters, given the supposition that originality is a painter’s greatest asset. The [...]

This is the first of a four-part article on the technical nature of the Mexican painting movement. Violent aesthetic transformations had occurred in the last few years while art criticism against painters oscillated between grand praise and fury. [...]

This article is one of the few that describes the murals painted in several primary schools in Mexico, thus it allows us to know what it was like before its total or partial destruction. The title of this mural by Pablo O’Higgins was Vida y [...]

Painter Pascual Navarro refutes the views of anthropologist and artist Gilberto Antolínez regarding the proposed reforms in the Academia de Artes Plásticas y Aplicadas in Venezuela in 1945. He objects to Antolínez’s prejudice against foreign [...]

This excerpt from Jacinto Quirarte’s book, Mexican American Artists, includes the introduction, chapters 4 through 8, and a short conclusion. In the introduction, the author explores Chicano identity and the unifying elements of Chicano art. While [...]

The writer Alardo Prats is pleased about the recent mural executed by José A. Monroy at the new Ciudad Universitaria in Guadalajara: “In these times—hypocritical and sanctimonious as they are—this stance is an act of indisputable personal [...]

María Izquierdo describes the customs of the inhabitants of the small mining village of Chillán, Chile, which was damaged by a strong earthquake in January 1939. Mexico declared its support for Chile, presenting Chillán with the construction of [...]

This document is an interview between Ralph Maradiaga and Chicano muralist Chuy Campusano. It centers on the relationship between the Mexican and Chicano mural movements, their similarities and differences, as well as the influence of famous Mexican [...]

In this essay, art historian Shifra M. Goldman addresses Chicano mural art in the United States, which began as an independent movement around 1970. Goldman discusses the influences of Mexican muralism, especially that of Los Tres Grandes, Diego [...]

This article documents an interview between Esaú Quíroz, a participant in the Chicano art movement, and the Mexican artist José Luis Cuevas. Quíroz and Cuevas discuss the present direction of the Chicano art movement, which Quiroz defined as [...]

During the inaugural ceremony for Diego Rivera’s mural, La creación [Creation], the poet Manuel Maples Arce described the painter as the prototype of the Estridentista artist who would lead the charge on behalf of the insurrection of the visual [...]

This article by David Alfaro Siqueiros is a theoretical analysis of the Mexican muralist movement, whose principal characteristic (and what differentiated it from the rest of the international trends) was its “functional political purpose.” [...]

Signed in September 1914, the short article by Dr. Atl—then director of the Academia de San Carlos—states his opinion about the direction the Academy should take as the Mexican revolution raged around it. “The dilemma I am facing is this: [...]

This short article discusses the mural work of Fernando Leal, who has just completed the fresco El triunfo de la locomotora [The Triumph of the Locomotive] at the railroad station in San Luis Potosí. The writer painter María Izquierdo is amazed [...]