Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

In this essay from 2004, historian Rick A. López argues that the Hull-House in Chicago played an important role in promoting a Mexican nationalist aesthetics among the Mexican migrant community that settled in the city in the 1920s. Behind the [...]

In this essay, José Sabogal praises the holdings of modern Mexican paintings from Moisés Saenz’s collection exhibited in Lima. He begins by emphasizing that many of the best artists of the Mexican revolution participated in the “intense [...]

Carlos Tortolero, founding father and director of the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum (now the National Museum of Mexican Art), writes that mainstream museums are elitist and discriminatory institutions that either claim they have already diversified [...]

Shifra M. Goldman wrote this text about María Enríquez de Allen to honor her for her contribution to art in the areas of flower making, Santos carving, and crafts. She especially praises Enríquez de Allen for enriching the visual vocabulary of [...]

This one-and-a-half column article written in 1944 by Colombian artist Ignacio Gómez Jaramillo precedes Mexican artist David Alfaro Siqueiros’s text, “Finalidad técnico-social del nuevo arte mural en América.” Together they comprise two [...]

This printed poster is divided into two parts. In the upper left-hand corner, a black-and-white photograph shows a close-up of a man behind bars looking straight ahead. In the background there is a two-story structure with white walls. To the right [...]

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 [...]

Cuban art promoter José Gómez Sicre comments on the graphic notebooks, which he prefers to call “books of graphic experiences,” by Mexican draftsman José Luis Cuevas. Gómez Sicre asserts that Cuevas’s staunchly pessimistic view of the human [...]

The American art historian, Shifra M. Goldman, writes an analysis of what happened in Mexican art during the years 1955 to 1965. In her opinion, this decade was marked by a growing international trend and by the essentialist loss of both national and [...]

In this essay, David R. Maciel explores the influence of Mexican visual production on Chicano art and the renewed concern of Chicano artists for Mexican history and cultural identity. Maciel begins by discussing the history of the link between Mexico [...]

This document is a condensed interview between Chicano artist David Avalos and John C. Welchman in which they address the concept of “borders” as physical, philosophical, and cultural entities, and discuss the relationship of art to such limits. [...]

In this essay, Guisela Latorre examines the reinterpretation by Chicano/a artists of photographs of soldaderas (female soldiers who participated in the Mexican Revolution) by the Mexican photographer Agustín Víctor Casasola. According to Latorre, [...]

In this interview conducted by Mexican performance artist and writer Guillermo Gómez-Peña, Chicano artist Rupert Garcia discusses his perspective on Chicano art, particularly its relation to mainstream institutions and current theoretical trends. [...]

In this essay, Manuel J. Martinez discusses the origins of Chicano art and proposes that it is an art of social protest at all. According to him, Chicano art is influenced by three sources: indigenous, colonial Spanish, and modern Mexican (or mestizo [...]

In this essay, Victor Zamudio-Taylor explores the valorization of Mexico’s pre-Columbian roots as a key element in the development of cultural identity within the Chicano movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Inspired by the ideology of mexicanidad— [...]

This is an essay by Alberto Híjar Serrano in which he addresses the notion of culture as a product of history and, particularly in the case of Chicano art, an important element in liberation struggles. Híjar Serrano remarks on the relationship [...]

This is an essay by Alberto Híjar Serrano in which he addresses the notion of culture as a product of history and, particularly in the case of Chicano art, an important element in liberation struggles. Híjar Serrano remarks on the relationship [...]

Poet and literary critic Marcella Trujillo examines the symbols that some Chicana poets have used in their published poetry to reflect their own position with regard to that of their Chicano male peers—and also the dominant male society at large. [...]

This manifesto written by Chicano artist Malaquías Montoya and his wife, Lezlie Salkowitz-Montoya, derides the developing trend of Chicano artists moving away from a community focus to individual artistic pursuits. According to the Montoyas, the [...]

Artist and activist David Avalos wrote this catalogue essay for his solo exhibition in New York at the Intar Gallery. There, Avalos provides a historical context by way of examples of American literature to explain the concept of the exhibition: the [...]

In this profile of the Chicago artist Marcos Raya, Jeff Huebner describes the people, places, and situations that have shaped Raya’s life and influenced his work, as well as the trajectory by which he gained national recognition. Extensively [...]

In this lecture, Raoul Deal reflects on his experiences living in Mexico between 1988 and 1998, on the history of art and education in Mexico, and the work of the workshop of El Tesoro de Tamulté in the state of Tabasco. Deal stresses Leandro Soto [...]

In the form of a letter, Raoul Deal reflects on how his installation Reinventando a Jimmy Green [Reinventing Jimmy Green]explores issues of migration, consumerism, and identity. Through his work, the artist looks at his process of adaptation upon [...]

In this article, Antonio Zavala offers a brief history of Movimiento Artístico Chicano (MARCH), highlighting the works of two of its members, the visual artist Carlos Cortéz and the poet Carlos Cumpián, as well as some of the organization’s [...]

This document includes the text of the catalogue and the program of lectures and film screenings related to the exhibition, Posada: Printmaker to the Mexican People. The catalogue opens with “Corrido of the Coming of Don José Guadalupe Posada to [...]

In this text, Martí Casanovas responds to a letter by Franz Tamayo considering the question of what direction the development of Indio-American culture should take. Distinguishing his philosophy from Tamayo’s, Casanovas explains that he believes [...]

In this text, Mariano Picón-Salas praises the greatness of Diego Rivera’s art and recounts the outsized presence of his persona in public life. He begins by recounting how, like the great masters of the Italian Renaissance, the figure of Rivera [...]

In this text, Mariano Picón-Salas describes how a series of murals by José Clemente Orozco presents a powerful myth about Mexican culture. Picón-Salas begins by praising Orozco as among the most significant artists of his era, and by tracing the [...]

Using newspaper sources, Esther Acevedo explores the diverse ways in which different groups of artists and intellectuals arose during 1920-1924 around the concept of “what is national,” particularly in the visual arts. She also investigates the [...]

The Aberlardo Rodríguez market was conceived as part of an urban development plan that would allow for the control of the itinerant commerce that encroached upon Mexico City downtown as well as the revaluation of the property within the zone. Its [...]

This essay researched and written by Pilar García de Germenos unravels, strand by strand, the historical fetish for linking certain national events that took place in 1910 with the postrevolutionary movement. (By way of background, 1910 was the year [...]

According to Ceferino Palencia, the Spanish art critic living in exile in Mexico, Frida Kahlo’s pictorial art was an eloquent example of will in service to sensitivity. Palencia speaks of Frida’s lifelong rebellion against her mother’s violent [...]

This essay praises the work of José Clemente Orozco and considers him one of the greatest painters in the world. Luis Cardoza y Aragón analyzes Orozco’s article step by step in a rather poetic manner. He mentions the great complexity of his work [...]

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 [...]

This article, written by Rafael Vera de Córdoba, director of the Escuela al Aire Libre [Open-Air School] in Xochimilco, provides a detailed description of the School’s teaching method. He refers to the students as children with no prior experience [...]

This text by writer and chronicler, Salvador Novo, provides a brief history of the Escuelas de Pintura al Aire Libre [Open-Air Schools of Painting], beginning with their origins in 1913 and continuing through to the time of the writing of this text. [...]

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 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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

This text chronologically summarizes the conception, development and implementation of Best’s drafting method that culminated in a publication of it. The publication places it within the context of American ideas, celebrating its good judgment to [...]

This text speaks of the evolution of sensorial perception and its relation to artistic expression. It proposes that the method of Adolfo Best Maugard be used in arts education because it would permit greater development and personal satisfaction [...]

Mariano Picón Salas produced this biographical sketch of Lola Cueto on the occasion of her visit to Venezuela for the exhibition of her collection of prints and a program of puppet shows. He discusses the artist’s life and work from three separate [...]

John Xceron reviews works by Lola Cueto that were exhibited at the Salle de la Renaissance 11 in Paris on February 6, 1929. He begins by saying that the best Mexican art is the traditional folk art created by simple, intuitive people, inspired by the [...]

In a series of philosophical commentaries, Jean Charlot emphasizes what is important and novel in Lola Cueto’s perforated paper works. He points out that one must remove parts of a stone in order create something. He talks about the idea of taking [...]

This manifesto begins by saying: “Please stop this aesthetic joke that is supposed to be profound! Stop boring us with yet another example of egocentric folk art! This is nothing but vanity.” It argues that if Jean Tinguely wants us to believe [...]

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 writer of this article refers to the exhibition of works by Mariano Rodríguez Orgaz, the Spanish artist living in exile, which was presented at the Palacio de Bellas Artes [Palace of Fine Arts]. The exhibition included the architectural studies [...]

This essay commemorates the first anniversary of the arrival of the Sinaia, the French ship that brought the first wave of Spanish refugees to Veracruz in 1939, and mentions that the date coincides with the shameful Nazi occupation of Paris (June [...]

The article is a review of the Exposición de arte mexicano [Exhibition of Mexican Art] that was held at the Hospital Juárez. It included paintings, sculpture, and engravings by Mexican artists such as Diego Rivera, Roberto Montenegro, Carlos Orozco [...]