Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

This article by Diego Rivera denounces the “reactionary” agents of Delahuertismo who were the true architects of the conspiracy to infiltrate Masonic lodges at the beginning of 1924 in order to murder the governor of Yucatan, Felipe Carrillo [...]

This document is a didactic-political text directed toward the working class organized around identification of its enemies. These include the fake socialist parties (equated with the Italian fascists). And also the intellectuals unable to understand [...]

The National War Propaganda Department, on behalf of Cuba’s Ministry of National Defense, published the script of the lecture to be delivered by David Alfaro Siqueiros on May 8, 1943, in Havana. The script provides a summary of his life from 1909 [...]

With war looming in the background, this manifesto, dated July 25, 1938, and signed by André Breton and Diego Rivera, expresses a particular point of view regarding the concept of freedom of expression for the artist and the man of science—“the [...]

Fausto Castillo interviewed Mr. Miguel Salas Anzures who—when asked about the accusation that he was spending a great deal of money on the first Bienal Interamericana de Pintura y Grabado [Inter-American Biennial of Painting and Printmaking], [...]

This was the headline of the supplement—dedicated to the muralist on the centenary of his birth—that published a document dated December 19, 1929 in which Diego Rivera explained “My Expulsion from the PCM.” The text discusses his reasons and [...]

Juan B. Climent interviews Manuel Rodríguez Lozano, who leaves no doubt about his position regarding the figures of Diego Rivera and David Alfaro Siqueiros in Mexican art. Lozano talks about the need to vindicate the native figure stemming from [...]

In this interview, David Alfaro Siqueiros expressed his views on the Biennial. He began by critiquing the paintings exhibited by the United States, and warned Latin American painters against imitating hybrid ideas that made no sense, such as Tachisme [...]

The art critic Juan Climent thought that Rufino Tamayo’s painting was caught in the crossfire of conflicting opinions. Some thought that his œuvre represented the decadent formalism of the School of Paris, but others saw it as the dawn of a new [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

This interview consists of fourteen questions regarding the reception that the Mexican art exhibition experienced from the Parisian public. Fernando Gamboa believed that the event was a great opportunity for the Mexican people, and also was a great [...]

In the Survey Section, the journalist Ortega decided to go to the Escuela Nacional Preparatoria to ask the painters there the following question: Who is the greatest painter in Mexico? The caricaturist Ernesto García Cabral ironically responds that [...]

In artistic circles in those days, according to Rufino Tamayo, anything that was not purely Mexican was roundly rejected, and works that reflected our own experience and personal expression were lavishly praised. This had its positive aspects, but it [...]

In this short article by Antonio Rodríguez, the art critic shows his support for an article published in the previous issue of the journal Espacios by the artist Roberto Berdecio, in defense of “social painting.” Rodríguez believes that “ [...]

Antonio Rodríguez analyzed Rufino Tamayo’s work, basing his remarks on the retrospective of his paintings exhibited at the Palacio de Bellas Artes. According to the exhibition catalog, Tamayo’s greatest contribution was his handling of color. [...]

Based on the criticisms that the emergence of Estridentismo gave rise to, Oscar Leblanc, a journalist of El Universal Ilustrado carries out a survey about the movement, interviewing several personalities. The responses are really extreme. The writer [...]

This brief article, illustrated by a large caricature, uses a humorous tone to comment on the disputes generated by the declarations of sculptors, who were unable to reach an agreement. “Instead of joining forces to fight the little dictator who [...]

Mathias Goeritz describes two projects proposed to the then-president of the organizing committee of the 19th Olympic Games, architect Pedro Ramírez Vázquez: the International Meeting of Sculptors and The Route of Friendship. The artist describes [...]

Antonio Rodríguez portrayed painter David Alfaro Siqueiros as an avant-garde artist because of his approach to using new pictorial materials. In this interview, Siqueiros declared that contemporary painters remained “impassive before the progress [...]

In this article the Spanish writer José Bergamín analyzes the mural, La Piedad [Mercy] that Manuel Rodríguez Lozano painted at the Lecumberri prison in Mexico City. He finds aspects of Lozano’s work within the Hispanic heritage adopted by [...]

This issue contains more than 400 engravings by José Guadalupe Posada, with a preface by Diego Rivera, in which he redefines the engraver as a “worker,” “warrior of leaflets,” the “greatest artist” produced by the people, and the [...]

André Salmon introduces Lola Cueto’s work by referring to certain moments that he considers important. He suggests that Edouard Manet’s painting, La Muerte de Maximiliano [The Death of Maximilian], was Mexico’s debut in the visual arts. [...]

This exhibition catalog, Chicago Latino, was part of an intercultural dialogue initiated by two “socially-minded arts groups,” the 369 Gallery of Edinburgh, Scotland, and the Near Northwest Arts Council of Chicago, Illinois. The exhibition [...]

In this text, Victor Alejandro Sorell writes that Chicago State University observed the 66th anniversary of the Mexican Revolution with a dedication of an eight-panel portable mural by Raymond Patlan entitled El Grito de la Raza Cósmica, [The Cry of [...]

This communiqué outlines the growth of the Liga de Escritores y Artistas Revolucionarios (LEAR) [League of Revolutionary Writers and Artists] in the last ten months, explaining the organizational structure and activities. It highlights the [...]

This text underscores the originality, expression and strength of the works created at the Escuelas de Pintura al Aire Libre [Open-Air Schools of Painting], arguing that these qualities are the product of racial purity and that as mestizaje [racial [...]

This stylized painting portrays some of the members of the Estridentista movement in their meeting place: El Café de Nadie [No Man’s Café]. Manuel Maples Arce is in the upper center of the picture, flanked by both Germán List and Salvador [...]

In this essay, the painter Carlos Mérida emphasizes Germán Cueto’s capacity to work with different materials such as iron, tin, and plastics, by connecting them to a new aesthetic modality called “design.” For Mérida, design is the vital [...]

Luis Mario Schneider carried out the first documented study on Etridentismo; he interviewed the members of the group and thoroughly examined the archives of this 1920s avant-garde movement. Although the group left some accounts to history, this was [...]

In this book, Margarita Nelken, a Spanish critic based in Mexico, discusses the development of Expressionism in Mexican art. She argues that Mexican Expressionism has a native origin that, with the passage of time, has been enriched by the different [...]

In the introduction to this catalog, César Moro (a celebrated Peruvian poet and artist) alludes to the antecedents of Surrealism within the avant-garde movements of the beginning of the twentieth century. He also identifies the contact points that [...]

This text by Fermín Revueltas, the director of the Escuela al Aire Libre de Guadalupe Hidalgo [Open-Air School of Guadalupe Hidalgo], is very concise. He states that the school he directs teaches art methods so that works can be created to be both [...]

The prologue to Forjando patria: pro nacionalismo, published in 1916 by leading Mexican anthropologist and archaeologist Manuel Gamio, compares the forging of metal out of an amalgam of bronze and steel to the ideal societal intermixing of Mexicans [...]

This text presents the Escuelas de Pintura al Aire Libre [Open-Air Schools of Painting] and its creative production as evidence that Mexican children have a natural artistic disposition. It also associates this disposition with their indigenous blood [...]

Mathias Goeritz states that he is fed up with logic and reason; with functionalism, decoration, and individualism; with the fashion of the moment, with vanity, ambition and egocentrism; with the -isms and -ists, both figuration and abstraction. He is [...]

The Taller de Gráfica Popular (TGP) [People’s Graphic Workshop] explained its working plan for graphic propaganda in a flyer that specified the following: it could be incorporated into wall newspapers, mailed as if it were postal correspondence, [...]

This novel by Eduardo A. Castrejón is based on the Baile de los 41 [The Dance of the 41], a notorious raid that took place in Mexico City in which 42 homosexual men were arrested. It tells the tale of a gathering hosted by a couple, Mimi and Ninón, [...]

This essay, written by Francisco Díaz de León, director of the Escuela de Pintura al Aire Libre [Open-Air Schools of Painting] in Tlalpan, explains that the Schools favor an aesthetic education and individual expression over technical education. He [...]

In this letter, Fernando Gamboa tells José (his last name is illegible) that the exhibition has been received positively. According to Gamboa there are those who have discovered an authentic pictorial path in Mexican painting, a possible escape from [...]

In this letter, the interim director of the Escuela Central de Artes Plásticas [Central School of the Visual Arts] informs the rector of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México [UNAM National Autonomous University of Mexico], and attorney-at- [...]

In this letter, David Alfaro Siqueiros tells Blanca Luz Brum that the Troubadour—the ship on which he sailed from Buenos Aires in December 1933—had arrived in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. Siqueiros talks about the book he wrote on the trip [...]

Juan de la Cabada reports on progress in organizing a Congreso Continental de Científicos [Scientists’ Continental Congress] in Mexico City under the direction of Víctor Manuel Villaseñor in accordance with the resolutions of the American [...]

This document proposes an exchange of publications between Frente a Frente and New Masses, but its main goal is to convince the North American publication to use its influence to help connect LEAR to the Association d’Écrivains et Artistes [...]

This essay discusses LEAR’s decision to establish a “Bureau Editor for Mexico” to publish the continent-oriented magazine, Sin Fronteras / All America—the roots of the future “Congreso Continental de Escritores y Artistas de Toda América [ [...]

“The Red International”—as Ramón Pi, Jr. referred to himself—describes his vehicle for distributing revolutionary words and images from his base in New York. His goal is to place his publication in the hands of professionals whose names he [...]

In this brief letter, David Alfaro Siqueiros advises Jackson Pollock and his team that the studio in New York will be closed during the day while he prepares for his forthcoming exhibition in Manhattan. Siqueiros explains that he needs to be alone to [...]

The Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes y Literatura (INBAL, 1947) invited Rufino Tamayo to participate in the Mexican Art Exhibition that would take place in Europe. The Oaxacan painter responded that he could not give them an answer until “he knew [...]

When no agreement could be reached to present the exhibition of Mexican art at the Petit-Palais in Paris, Fernando Gamboa was forced to find an alternative space. In this letter to Carlos Chávez, Gamboa informs him of the results of attempts to hold [...]

This document is Carlos Chávez’s response to the letter that Rufino Tamayo had written to Fernando Gamboa on August 20, 1951. In it, Tamayo asks to know the government’s point of view on the Mexican Art Exhibition that would take place in Europe [...]