The editorial categories are research topics that have guided researchers during the recovery phase and continue to be the impetus behind the Documents Project’s digital archive and the Critical Documents book series. Developed by the project’s Editorial Board, each of the teams analyzed this framework and adapted it to their local contexts in developing their research objectives and work plans during the Recovery Phase. Learn more on the Editorial Framework page.
Hide
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 David Alfaro Siqueiros and Amado de la Cueva, who died tragically in 1926, shortly after finishing these paintings. He mentions the mural by Carlos Orozco Romero at the Museo Regional—painted with “great technique” and “geometrical balance”—and other works by the late painter, remarking on the refined drawing within the composition.
When mural art was classified according to the standard of modernity decreed by José Guadalupe Zuno (1891–1980) and the group of intellectuals at Bandera de Provincias, mural painting in Jalisco still claimed a certain cultural and artistic sovereignty vis-à-vis the central power of the capital city. The most remarkable murals in Guadalajara at that time were the ones at the UdeG, now the Biblioteca Iberoamericana Octavio Paz. For the record, that space had once housed the Templo de Santo Tomás and was later a telegraph office. Zumo’s idea was to convert religious spaces into secular ones and paint murals on the walls. The allegories painted on the vaulted ceilings reveal a formal geometrical influence while illustrating the functions of certain jobs, since the paintings’ main purpose was to associate political militancy with the demands of the workers.
The author incorrectly uses the name “José” to refer to David Alfaro Siqueiros.