Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

Venezuelan curator Corina Michelena provides an overview of the graphic work of Mexican painter Rufino Tamayo, pointing out the similarities and differences between the media of painting and prints in his work. Michelena describes Tamayo’s [...]

The author notes a dual American inheritance from both indigenous and western cultures in the Rufino Tamayo paintings exhibited in Lima. Playing against what he calls “Americanism” or “absolute indigenous-ness,” Alejandro Lora Risco [...]

In search of an expression that would be authentically Latin American, Alejandro Lora Risco establishes the difference between American culture and reality, the latter referring to the material facts of life on the continent. Reflecting on his [...]

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 [...]

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 letter by Felipe Buendía to the editor of Caretas, a magazine published in Lima, regarding the inauguration of the IAC (Instituto de Arte Contemporáneo) new building. The writer and journalist complains that the institution closed its [...]

Commentary by Luis Miró Quesada Garland on the Mexican art exhibition organized by La Crónica newspaper. The author begins by recognizing the quality of the exhibition as a holistic view on Mexican painting within the last few years. Nevertheless, [...]

This is the first of two articles by Sebastián Salazar Bondy, published under the pseudonym “Juan Eye,” on the Mexican art exhibition organized in Lima by La Crónica newspaper. The author believes the show is exceptional for its positive [...]

This brief interview with Fernando de Szyszlo took place upon his return to Lima after having lived in Paris—which he calls “a fountain of life”—for a number of years. With enthusiasm, he describes the stimulating cultural milieu of the [...]

Contrary to the arguments put forth by opponents of “non-figurative” painting, this article maintains that a country’s degree of cultural evolution is in no way tied to its adherence or lack of adherence to a given artistic tendency. While, the [...]

This document is a short manifesto written in 1959 by the Argentinean collective, Grupo Espartaco. The writers denote the importance of art as revolutionary and state that their mission is to integrate the visual arts with political action and social [...]

In this article, art historian Robert Goldwater analyzes the life and work of Mexican painter Rufino Tamayo. Goldwater explains that although Tamayo is thought to have an individual style, when his works are assembled, it is apparent that his work is [...]

In this essay, Mexican poet, writer, and diplomat Octavio Paz analyzes Mexican artist Rufino Tamayo’s relationship with Mexican popular art and Pre-Columbian art. According to Tamayo, popular art should not be seen as art but as a functional [...]

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 [...]

This document is a 1977 calendar produced by the Movimiento Artístico Chicano (MARCH), which includes biographies and reproductions of works by twelve Chicago-area Chicano artists, one for each month. Significant dates in Chicano history are also [...]

In this text, Shifra Goldman examines the problematic homogenization of the idea of “Hispanic” art and culture that was promoted by the exhibition Hispanic Art in the United States: Thirty Contemporary Painters and Sculptors organized by The [...]

In this text, Damián Bayón introduces a collection of essays on Latin American art with a broad overview of what he argues are the most critical issues when considering the historical and contemporary art of the region as a whole. He begins by [...]

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 [...]

The Mexican artist Alberto Beltrán writes to Lorenzo Homar to tell him that the Mexican printmaker Adolfo Quinteros is having a difficult time. He also mentions that a new museum is to be opened in front of the Museo de Arte Moderno to house the [...]

José Antonio Torres Martinó, a Puerto Rican artist and critic, states that Rufino Tamayo is in Puerto Rico for a retrospective exhibition that will revolve around the work of the Mexican painter. This show is one of the main events of the VII [...]

The journalist Sonia Cordero tells us that the mural commissioned by the Universidad de Puerto Rico (UPR) from the Mexican artist, Rufino Tamayo, was mounted in the General Library on the Rio Piedras Campus in 1957. Cordero mentions the materials [...]

The journalist Darío Carlo, from the Puerto Rican newspaper El mundo, interviews the American artist Rockwell Kent about the mural for the library at the Universidad de Puerto Rico that was to be painted by the Mexican artist Rufino Tamayo. Kent [...]

U.S. critic Shifra M. Goldman comments on the importance of the Bienal de San Juan del Grabado Latinoamericano y del Caribe [San Juan Biennial of Latin American and Caribbean Graphic Art] for Puerto Rico, Latin America, and the Caribbean. At the VII [...]

In the prologue to the catalogue of the 1935 exhibition of contemporary Mexican art, Mexican artist Jorge Juan Crespo de la Serna provides a brief overview of Mexican art from the time of the Mayans until the present. He asserts that Mexican art, [...]

This essay by Tomás Ybarra-Frausto is included in the 1981 catalogue of selected works from the Mexican Museum in San Francisco, California. Ybarra-Frausto presents a historiography documenting the trajectory of Mexican American artistic traditions [...]

Puerto Rican historian Margarita Fernández Zavala summarizes the details of the VII Bienal de San Juan del Grabado Latinoamericano y del Caribe [7th San Juan Biennial of Latin American and Caribbean Graphic Art] (1986). The VII Bienal honored the [...]

According to the communiqué, several members of the LEAR [League of Revolutionary Writers and Artists] were scolded by the League’s Executive Committee for overextending their stay in New York and abandoning their League duties, The members were [...]

This article analyzes the works exhibited by Abraham Ángel, Julio Castellanos, Carlos Mérida, Manuel Rodríguez Lozano and Rufino Tamayo. It also states that other artists were invited to participate: José Clemente Orozco, who promised to send [...]

On the fifteenth anniversary of the Galería de Arte Mexicano [GAM, Mexican Art Gallery], Margarita de Ponce reviews its activities and discusses what she considers to be its greatest contributions toward the distribution and promotion of Mexican art [...]

Given the recent re-opening of the Museo Nacional de Arte Moderno at the Palacio de Bellas Artes, the writer Francisca Olivos asks and, at the same time, answers: “Does it respond to Mexican painting as we know it and as it has been until now? [...]

In this essay, originally published in 1970, Jorge Alberto Manrique points out that in the 1950s the Mexican School of Painting began to stagnate in terms of both form and motifs. However, official support allowed it to maintain its control of the [...]

On November 8, 1950, Rufino Tamayo opened an exhibition at the Galerie Beaux-Arts in Paris. This anonymous short article, published in Mexico one week later, says that a “modest and educated” Mexican painter had stirred up an “art storm.” [...]

The painter and engraver Fanny Rabel directs an ironic, open letter to Diego Rivera because of the declarations he had made four months earlier in the same publication. [See 794985] In the name of the young generations, Rabel asks Rivera if a change [...]

This short article by the art critic Margarita Nelken comments on the recent inauguration in Paris of the traveling exhibition of Mexican art with work ranging from the pre-Columbian period up to the date of the article. She describes the artistic [...]

In this article, painter María Izquierdo again decides to express her viewpoint without the use of intermediaries. She had done so one month before and here she again declares her disapproval of the monopoly created by the Comisión Nacional de [...]

This document is the script for the documentary Pintura Mural Mexicana [Mexican Mural Painting], to be produced by Manuel Barbachano Ponce’s company, Tele-producciones. The documentary was made in response to a request from the Instituto Nacional [...]

In this essay, written in 1988, Manuel Felguérez relates the beginnings of what is known as the Ruptura movement in the 1950s. Felguérez points out that the arrival of refugees from the Spanish Civil War and other European nations in the previous [...]

In this seminal text from the mid-1950s, a young José Luis Cuevas criticizes the cultural policies of the Mexican government three decades later for still favoring nationalist art, especially as pictured in murals. Cuevas tells an ironic story that [...]

A short article in which the critic Raúl Flores Guerrero tries to mediate a dispute among journalists set off by José Luis Cuevas, who has taken a position against muralism. It is a brouhaha that has been already going on for a few months. Flores [...]

In commemoration of the XV anniversary of the weekly magazine Hoy [Today], the Instituto de Bellas Artes (INBA) suggests the periodical publish a selection of images representing local painting throughout the ages. An article written by the critic [...]

This is a review of the exhibition of modern Mexican art that the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes [INBA, National Institute of Fine Arts] sent to Bordeaux, France; it was subsequently shown in Paris and Milan, Italy. Jaime Torres Bodet, the [...]

In this article Damián Bayón questions the general state of the art world and the place occupied by Latin American artists within it. He defines the preeminent art trends of the time and then analyzes the way in which Latin American [...]

The exhibition at Perls Gallery in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, presented Rufino Tamayo as one of the four great Mexican artists. His works were part of the great modernism and, unlike those of his colleagues, no Communist symbols could be found in [...]

In this essay Teresa del Conde analyzes the characteristics of what she calls the “young painting of Mexico,” meaning those national vanguard trends that had arisen in the 1950s and that developed fully during the 1960s. Members of this group [...]

This article announces a new column in the magazine Hoy that will feature “weekly comments from the desk of a Mexican diplomat who, for obvious reasons, wishes to remain anonymous.” Covering each of the days of the previous week, the author of [...]

This review by Elena Poniatowska describes the contents of the Mexican Pavilion at the 1958 Brussels World’s Fair, focusing especially on the works of art exhibited. Underscoring the topic by using bold letters, the author of the article speaks in [...]

The journalist Luis Suárez complains about the selection of paintings made by the “International committee of experts designated by the general commissioners of the Pavilions of certain number of countries with some importance in modern art,” [...]

In this interview, David Alfaro Siqueiros states that in the exhibition Arte mexicano: desde tiempos precolombinos hasta nuestros días [Mexican Art: From Pre-Colombian Times to Our Days], contemporary Mexican painting had generated both supportive [...]

Alejandro Núñez Alonso addresses the significant impact of Mexican art abroad. Both European critics and the public had been pleased with this great exhibition—Arte Mexicano en Paris [Mexican Art in Paris], 1952—with a full panorama of Mexican [...]

The questionnaire consists of six questions concerning the importance of social art in Mexico. The questions are as follows: Do you believe that the function of art in our time is to deliver an eloquent message of social content to the people? Do you [...]