Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

This article is called a “lesson” (as are all the chapters in the book Universalismo Constructivo, which is a collection of lectures), a reference to Joaquín Torres García’s didactic style throughout the lengthy volume. The project is the [...]

This 1920 article by Sebastián Viviani was published in Trabajo, a periodical that was a vehicle for the Consejo Superior de la Enseñanza Industrial in Uruguay. The text is a summary of the lecture given by sculptor Antonio Pena—who taught [...]

In 1956, the art critic José Pedro Argul published a text written the year before for the faculty at the Colegio Sagrada Familia. In it, he outlined his ideas on visual art, his studies, and his philosophy. It reviewed the concept of “beauty,” [...]

This article was written around the time Joaquín Torres García was giving his lecture on “Mística de la Pintura” and reviewing the main points supporting his conception of “art,” that is, immanentism [God or an abstract mind or spirit [...]

On the occasion of a tribute to Mexico, Joaquín Torres García gives a talk at the Ateneo de Montevideo about the major Mexican artists. He mentions the group of artists who are commonly referred to as “Los Tres Grandes:” David Alfaro Siqueiros [...]

This is the text of the entire talk delivered by Fernando de Szyszlo and part of the tribute organized by the IAC (Instituto de Arte Contemporáneo) in 1955 in honor of the painter Mario Urteaga. Szyszlo describes him as a highly idiosyncratic [...]

This is a newspaper review of “El arte para la victoria y la pintura mexicana moderna,” the lecture given by David Alfaro Siqueiros at the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes de Lima in March 1943. The painter and political activist informed his [...]

This document is the official version of the press conference given by the de facto president, General Juan Velasco Alvarado, at the Palacio de Gobierno in Peru on June 24, 1972. While the issues addressed revolve around international relations of [...]

Puerto Rican painter Francisco Oller delivered this speech to students and fellow professors around 1902 while teaching at the Normal School in Río Piedras. Oller explains that in order to impart anything meaningful to his audience, he must first [...]

In this lecture given in April 1989 at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago-based, Puerto Rican artist Bibiana Suarez states that the value of art is dependent on its power to reveal the artist’s innermost world, and to preserve that [...]

The Cuban professor Félix Beltrán writes to Lorenzo Homar to tell him about the difficulties he encountered on entering the United States for a lecture tour. An unresolved case involving secret activities in the state of New Jersey created problems [...]

This text documents the proceedings of the first Conference on Inter-American Relations in the Field of Art, which was held in three sections: an analysis of the conference proceedings; the minutes from two days of sessions; and finally the [...]

The author summarizes a lecture given by poet José Gorostiza in which he talks about the “little teachers” of the new school of Mexican painting, as well as the “affinities that are enough, in my opinion, to characterize the work in its [...]

This article describes Diego Rivera’s lecture in the library at the Academia de Bellas Artes [Academy of Fine Arts], which was well attended. There was a great deal of interest in his presentation, particularly in artistic and intellectual circles [...]

Carlos Mérida starts this lecture by commenting on the effort made by U.S. artists to found a center for the Union Artists Gallery, which would surely lay the foundation for the future of art in the United States. He notes the close affinity between [...]

This document reports on the prohibition of David Alfaro Siqueiros’s third lecture at Amigos del Arte [Friends of Art Association] in Buenos Aires. The article mentions the part played by writer Victoria Ocampo. It also discusses the content of the [...]

This is the text of a lecture given by Joaquín Torres-García at the School of Science and Humanities in Montevideo, Uruguay, in which he reflected on modern art and even analyzed a number of theories. Among other controversial views, he announced [...]

A lecture given on September 25, 1948, in the Nuevas Realidades salon at the Van Riel Gallery in Buenos Aires, in which Ernesto Rogers analyses Concrete art, while acknowledging tradition as an active force. From that critical stance, he considers [...]

Fragment of the conference given by Edgar Bayley on September 5, 1946, at the Centro de Profesores Diplomados de Buenos Aires [Center for Certified Professors, Buenos Aires]. Among other topics, the text registers the contributions of the Asociación [...]