Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

The author, Antonino Espinosa Saldaña, makes aesthetic differentiations among “Art Deco” style plans, which were then innovative in the Peruvian context, in opposition to the prevailing indigenous art trend. He argues that Expressionism is [...]

This prologue to the published Viracocha notebooks was written in 1923 by the president of the Argentinean Comisión Nacional de Bellas Artes, Martín Noel. The Viracocha sketchbooks were a collection of drawings inspired by themes and motifs in the [...]

This letter was written by the U.S. archaeologist and historian, Phillip Ainsworth Means, to the Peruvian Minister of Education in connection with the opening of a rug factory in Cotahuasi. Means points out “la vital importancia de la arqueología [...]

Fernando Lemos discusses the “vignettes”—ornamental motifs derived from “classic styles” (Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, etc.)—in the decorations painted on some of the trucks he sees driving around the city of São Paulo. In this brief [...]

In his introduction to Método de Dibujo [Drafting Method], José Juan Tablada identifies it as a weapon in the struggle to establish harmony and democracy amid the chaos and authoritarianism in the artistic milieu. He states that the process at work [...]

In this article, the writer Ronald de Carvalho questions the undeniable presence of foreign styles in the decorative art to be seen in the city of Rio de Janeiro, and suggests using ornamental motifs inspired by Brazilian flora and fauna and native [...]

Furthering his theories about popular art, and referring to the paintings on the walls of certain pulquerías [agave sap bars] in Mexico City, Diego Rivera once again discusses the art of the proletariat. He restates his contempt for bourgeois [...]