Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

Fradique’s article, signed in Guadalajara, which is the capital of the state of Jalisco, sets out to review the work of some of the artists from that state. He begins with the “elders”: Dr. Atl, Alfredo Ramos Martínez (sic) and Rafael Ponce de [...]

This article reviews the José Clemente Orozco exhibition that included the paintings belonging to his La casa del llanto [The House of Weeping] series (1911) and others as well. The exhibition took place at the Biblos bookstore, located in the [...]

This is an article directed to José Vasconcelos, the ex-minister of Public Education during the Obregón administration (1920–24) and a patron of the Muralist movement from inception in 1921. In the article, the author questions him on his [...]

In this text, the painter José Clemente Orozco states that the “Manifiesto del Sindicato” [the Painters and Sculptors Manifesto] is “extraordinarily important; its influence has been felt for two decades and younger painters [...]

In this document, José Clemente Orozco provides a vast panorama of what he believes was thought in Mexico in 1920 regarding art: 1. Any person could feel he was a painter; 2. Pre-Cortés art was the only tradition and everyone spoke of [...]

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 [...]

As vice-president of the Frente Nacional de Artes Plásticas (FNAP) [National Front for the Visual Arts], David Alfaro Siqueiros makes the latest resolution of the group known. To wit: “to immediately initiate a national campaign directed at the [...]

Xavier Moyssén writes about mural painting’s nineteenth-century precedents, in private houses and in pulquerías [agave sap saloons,] and works painted by nineteenth-century students at the Academia; the artists, he includes, are José Obregón, [...]

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 [...]

The Nazi-affiliated nationalist newspaper Crisol [Melting pot] writes about the exhibition of Mexican artist David Alfaro Siqueiros that took place at Amigos del Arte [Friends of Art], a liberal institution that promotes the modernization of the [...]

Amaro Martínez presents an aesthetic and political critique of David Alfaro Siqueiros’s work and political agenda. The author defends art as an expression of man; he considers proletariat art absurd. At the same time that he defends the concept of [...]

This is the first systematic study of this painter’s murals in the so-called “Escuelas funcionalistas” [functional schools]. One school was built in 1932 in the Colonia Pro-Hogar (Azcapotzalco Area) in Mexico City; two years later, Alva [...]

This article reports on the "judicial inspection" of Historia del teatro en México [History of the Theater in Mexico], the mural painted by David Alfaro Siqueiros in the foyer of the Jorge Negrete theater, which belonged to the Asociación Nacional [...]

David Alfaro Siqueiros has no intention of providing a monographic analysis of Diego Rivera’s mural, Retrato de América [Portrait of America], or an academic assessment of Rivera’s faults or opportunism. According to Siqueiros, a critique should [...]

David Alfaro Siqueiros sends the architect Carlos Lazo, project manager at Ciudad Universitaria (UNAM) in Mexico City, three documents about the scaffolding he has erected and the mural he is executing at the university’s Rectoría [President’s [...]

In this text, Jesse Gonzales presents an overview of Latino art in Michigan, from the nineteenth-century to the time when he published this essay, touching upon key moments from the 1920s to the 1990s. Gonzales features early fiestas patrias [ [...]

Though using a moderate tone–and even an admiring one when he refers to the continuity, sense of color and form, knowledge of the avant-garde, and diversity in the work—García Maroto was part of the debate, discussion, or situation regarding the [...]

Carlos Chávez tells the press that he had received an order not to exhibit the painting Pesadilla de guerra y sueño de paz [Nightmare of War and Dream of Peace]. As such he had only two choices: remove the painting or close the museum; he opted for [...]

In this article, art critic Jorge Juan Crespo de la Serna wrote about mural painting and its importance in the evolution of Mexican art. He believed the murals should be intimately connected to the life of the country that produces them given their [...]

This article reports on the success of the exhibition of ancient and modern Mexican art that was presented in Paris and then shipped to Stockholm. In Fernando Gamboa’s opinion, the exhibition was a revelation. The Parisian press described it as the [...]

This newspaper article includes part of a lengthy lecture on Mexican mural painting that David Alfaro Siqueiros gave during a visit to Brazil. The artist mentions his involvement in the Mexican Revolution (1910–20), talks about working with the [...]

In his long essay, Siqueiros defends Diego Rivera’s work in response to Margarita Nelken’s article on the latter’s retrospective exhibition at Bellas Artes published in the latest issue of Cuadernos Americanos. He accuses Nelken of being “ [...]

David Alfaro Siqueiros attacks the implacable enemy of the Liga de Escritores y Artistas Revolucionarios (LEAR) [League of Revolutionary Writers and Artists], the Trotskyite Diego Rivera, “leader and supporter of the Fourth International in Mexico [...]

This is a collection of articles by David Alfaro Siqueiros in which he restates the principles of an art about war, linking it to the great artistic traditions expressed in the work of artists such as Dr. Atl, José Clemente Orozco, and Diego Rivera [...]

In this biographical sketch, Loló de la Torriente defines the aspiration of David Alfaro Siqueiros as wanting to be recognized as a leader of socialist fighters rather than as a painter. The text is divided into four parts: Siqueiros, the man; the [...]

This document offers a description of the murals that Marion Greenwood, an American painter and Brooklyn native, created for the Mercado Abelardo L. Rodríguez. Urban and rural labor, industrial development, the class struggle, and the struggle [...]

This article reproduces some of Diego Rivera’s observations regarding his work, based on a number of sketches done in Paris and Tehuantepec “in which the penetrating sensibility of the artist may be discerned.” These sketches would later be [...]

The art critic Jorge Juan Crespo de la Serna was very disappointed that Rufino Tamayo had not participated in the Bienal Interamericana de Pintura y Grabado [Inter-American Biennial of Painting and Printmaking], and felt it was a capricious decision [...]

In this article, Luis Cardoza y Aragón reviews the events of 1957, and laments the deaths of Diego Rivera and Miguel Covarrubias. He lists the various exhibitions taking place in Mexico City, including different murals, such as the Fanny Ravel in [...]

Juan Grela speaks about painting in the city of Rosario at his lecture, beginning with the Mutualidad [Society]. He refers to his respect for the university and his long-standing relationship with Amigos del Arte [Friends of Art]. The author tells [...]

Diego Rivera thought the name “Tres Grandes” [The Big Three] was ridiculous. He also did not think that Rufino Tamayo should be included in the “trio” because his work was very different from theirs. Though Rivera considered Tamayo to be a [...]

Romance magazine invited the Mexican artist David Alfaro Siqueiros to discuss his theoretical ideas about painting’s essential problems. At the time, he was finishing the mural at the Sindicato Mexicano de Electricistas de la Ciudad de México [ [...]

In the course of an interview, Rufino Tamayo talks about the polemic that arose regarding his mural at the Conservatorio Nacional with the topics of song and music. Tamayo took advantage of this forum to disqualify the students of the “little [...]

The nationalist Catholic newspaper Bandera Argentina [Argentinean Flag] writes about the lecture given by Mexican painter David Alfaro Siqueiros at Signo facilities, an association of artists directed by Leonardo Estarico. The columnist believes that [...]

Juan Pérez [John Doe], pseudonym of an unknown author, writes about the political content in David Alfaro Siqueiros’s work, emphasizing that muralism is a tool of the proletarian revolution. The anonymous author expresses the local Communist [...]

This text taken from the art news section of Signo [Sign] magazine, run by the art critic Leonardo Estarico, briefly reports on the expected arrival of Mexican artist David Alfaro Siqueiros in Buenos Aires in 1933. The magazine introduces the artist [...]

Zuno begins his article by pointing out the different “contributions” that tapatíos [Guadalajarans] have made to José Clemente Orozco’s work. In contrast to other tapatíos, Zuno decided to emphasize the different planes of his mural and [...]

José Guadalupe Zuno (Z) devotes this entire article to mural paintings in Jalisco, having commissioned some of them himself while he was governor. Zuno makes particular reference to the murals in the Salón de la Universidad that were painted by [...]

In this essay, the former governor of Jalisco, José Guadalupe Zuno, discusses government support of painting, stressing its modern style. He uses the opportunity to talk about Diego Rivera, emphasizing his cultural work rather than his artistic [...]

In 1944, David Alfaro Siqueiros wrote an open letter to José Clemente Orozco in which he admitted that he could identify the different stages of his work. Siqueiros begins by saying that an artist’s work is not an individual creation but the [...]

Jorge Vicario Román, virtually unknown as a painter, was a native of the state of Morelos. In order to receive the commission for his mural painting he had to pass through “the tortuous paths of criticism.” The author believed that Vicario Romá [...]

In this lengthy article, Fausto Ramírez discusses the importance of paying attention to the creative work of men of art and science as one contemplates the future of the world, as was done at the New School for Social Research (1930). This topic was [...]

Raúl Anguiano believed that the best-known painters had made costly mistakes and had experienced great failures. He referred to the “pintura bajo el agua” [“underwater painting”] by Diego Rivera as much as to the sculpture-painting by [...]

Diego Rivera felt it would be an opportune time to publish the program of activities for the Comisión Nacional de Pintura Mural [National Commission for Mural Painting] given the lack of information that many painters had concerning its function. [...]

The author of this text provides a detailed description of the mural—consisting of four panels painted by José Renau for the Casino de la Selva in Cuernavaca—and says that, "The project’s general theme is Spain and Mexico." Palencia then [...]

In this interview, David Alfaro Siqueiros associates Rufino Tamayo with the formalism of the School of Paris, with the snobbish, bourgeois attitude of those who opposed political art. He acknowledges the sense of color and synthesis in Tamayo’s [...]

José Clemente Orozco believed that opposition to political painting was nothing new in Mexico; it had been around since the start of the mural movement. Some painters tried to stamp out all forms of figurative or representative expression. When [...]

Rufino Tamayo made no reference to the government initiative being handled by Rivera, Orozco, and Siqueiros, although he expressed his strong opposition to the idea. In 1944 Tamayo had warned that Mexican painting was stagnating and in a state of [...]

In an interview with Antonio Rodríguez, the painter José Chávez Morado expressed his approval of the Comisión Nacional de Pintura Mural [National Commission for Mural Painting] on the grounds that a standard must be established for decorating [...]

The Comisión Nacional de Pintura Mural [National Commission for Mural Painting], which consisted of Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, and David Alfaro Siqueiros, was founded in late August 1947. The Commission’s goal was to stimulate and [...]