Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

A letter dated June 10, 1958, from Maria Luisa Mendoza to Fernando Gamboa (who was in Brussels at the time) took the form of a progress report. Mendoza, a consultant on the art integration project Centro Médico Nacional [National Medical Center], [...]

While he was in Brussels, Fernando Gamboa stayed in close communication with the architect Enrique Yáñez, who informed him of the progress of the artists working on the Centro Médico [Medical Center]. In addition to designing the Centro, Yáñez [...]

In this article, Dr. Manuel Urrutia, a prominent figure in the field of hygiene education in Mexico during the 1940s and 1950s, explains the etymological origin of the word “museums” in order to introduce the reader to the Mexican Museum of [...]

Bertram Wolfe, Diego Rivera’s biographer, states that the period from the late 1930s through the early 1940s was a solitary, confusing time for the painter due to the fact that his name was appearing constantly in newspaper headlines as the [...]

The Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social (IMSS) [Mexican Institute of Social Security] was created at the beginning of the hospital construction project; it was a decentralized entity with legal status located in the nation’s capital. Although [...]

On February 9, 1944, Dr. Gustavo Baz was the director of the “Festival en el Museo de Higiene” [Festival at the Museum of Hygiene]—as it was referred to in the national press—when it opened to the public in the old convent of Corpus Christi, [...]

The Museo de Higiene [Museum of Hygiene] consisted of different “circuits” that replaced, by name at least, traditional exhibition rooms. The exhibition presented three variations on the theme of hygiene as applied to food, oral care and the home [...]

The inauguration of David Alfaro Siqueiros’ mural at the Hospital de La Raza [Hospital of the People] in Mexico City on March 18, 1955, mobilized the press and art critics of the era. The iconography explored by the artist and the physical [...]

David Alfaro Siqueiros’ painting at the recently constructed “Hospital de La Raza” [“Hospital of the People”] grabbed the attention of the public and art specialists. The novelty of the topic and the physical characteristics of the [...]

The initial title that David Alfaro Siqueiros proposed for the mural he painted at Centro Medico Nacional [the National Medical Center] was Apología de la futura victoria de la ciencia médica sobre el cáncer. Paralelismo Histórico entre la [...]

The invitation to the ceremony introducing the David Alfaro Siqueiros mural Por una seguridad completa y para todos los mexicanos [For a Complete Safety for All Mexicans] is a document of value for its graphic design. It represents the crowning [...]

In the mural portion of the Centro Médico Nacional [National Medical Center] project, José Chávez Morado did not skimp on the space to be decorated or the materials to be used. On a surface of over 5500 square feet, he sculpted a cyclorama of [...]

Journalist Julio Scherer conducted an interview with David Alfaro Siqueiros in which their conversation covered the technique the artist applied and the subject matter he explored in the Centro Médico Nacional mural: cancer. Scherer asked why he had [...]