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.
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After discussing how busy Germán List Arzubide—the Estridentista from old times—kept in New York’s workers’ media, Ben Ossa mentions the ideas suggested to LEAR by the “Congreso de Artistas Americanos (de Estados Unidos)” [American Artists’ Congress]. Among them he lists: securing the involvement of important people such as painters José Clemente Orozco and Miguel Covarrubias; ensuring large attendance; obtaining the necessary funds, and organizing an preceding exhibition. “Mexico is the most important art center at this time,” the letter-writer insists, and suggests inviting artists such as Luis Arenal, David Alfaro Siqueiros, Leopoldo Méndez and Julio de la Fuente, among others.
This letter shows that as early as 1935, there was communication with Mexico in preparation for the first American Artists’ Congress, which was held the following year and was attended by José Clemente Orozco (1883–-1949) and David Alfaro Siqueiros (1896–1974). The delegation also included Emilio Amero, Angélica Arenal de Siqueiros, Luis Arenal, Juan Bracho, Rafael Guardia Verdeció, Antonio Pujol, as well as Rufino and Olga Tamayo. This document also reports on the relationships between cultural fronts and the different forms that the acknowledgment of artistic hegemony took in certain leftist circles in the United States. Ben Ossa was one of the representatives, along with Carleton Beals, of LAPS, the Latin American Press Union, and served as a liaison with Mexico for the American Artists’ Congress in 1935.