Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

Commentary by essayist Alejandro Lora Risco on the Mexican art show organized in Lima by La Crónica newspaper. From within the event’s massive audience, the author highlights the presence of the individuals most likely to read his text: Peruvian [...]

This is the first of two articles by Sebastián Salazar Bondy, published under the pseudonym “Juan Eye,” on the Mexican art exhibition organized in Lima by La Crónica newspaper. The author believes the show is exceptional for its positive [...]

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. [...]

In the prologue to the catalogue of the 1935 exhibition of contemporary Mexican art, Mexican artist Jorge Juan Crespo de la Serna provides a brief overview of Mexican art from the time of the Mayans until the present. He asserts that Mexican art, [...]

When interviewed for his participation in the first exhibition of Los Contemporáneos group, Manuel Rodríguez Lozano replied: “We are not a group but rather four independent painters,” the common denominator among them being “work and honesty [...]

This article analyzes the works exhibited by Abraham Ángel, Julio Castellanos, Carlos Mérida, Manuel Rodríguez Lozano and Rufino Tamayo. It also states that other artists were invited to participate: José Clemente Orozco, who promised to send [...]

Critic Jorge Juan Crespo de la Serna reviews the content of the newly opened Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes at the Palacio de Bellas Artes. After several visits to take in the breadth of the collection, he concludes that the Mexican painting section [...]

This document is the script for the documentary Pintura Mural Mexicana [Mexican Mural Painting], to be produced by Manuel Barbachano Ponce’s company, Tele-producciones. The documentary was made in response to a request from the Instituto Nacional [...]

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 [...]

In commemoration of the XV anniversary of the weekly magazine Hoy [Today], the Instituto de Bellas Artes (INBA) suggests the periodical publish a selection of images representing local painting throughout the ages. An article written by the critic [...]

This article is a complaint by José María García Ascot against the authorities of the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes (INBA), which had just published a catalog with an image of the eighteen works sent to represent Mexico in the XXIX Venice [...]

The critic Margarita Nelken analyzes the success of the show organized at Galería Excélsior under the title Arte y Libertad [Art and Freedom] by the Asociación Mexicana por la Libertad de la Cultura. “The key feature of this exhibition is the [...]

On the occasion of the Exposición de Artistas Independientes [Exhibition by Independent Artists] in New York, José Juan Tablada responded—with a spirited defense of the Mexican artists whose work was on display—to rumors he had heard [...]

This letter by José Luis Cuevas, sent from Philadelphia, was published in the newspaper Novedades on February 15, 1958. The missive is a response to an article by Andrés Henestrosa published three weeks earlier. Here, Cuevas defends German [...]

Art critic Rosa Castro asked three respected Mexican artists for their opinions on the Bienal Interamericana de Pintura y Grabado [Inter-American Biennial of Painting and Printmaking]. Raúl Anguiano felt that the biennial was the most important [...]

The painter Manuel Rodríguez Lozano declared in the newspaper Excélsior that Diego Rivera and David Alfaro Siqueiros were mistaken in believing that an attack on communist painting constituted an attack on Mexican art. Rodríguez Lozano maintained [...]

In this 1925 letter, Ángel Zárraga acknowledges Manuel Rodríguez Lozano as a painter and a friend. After a brief introduction of indeterminate tone, Zárraga points to his discovery that “Race” and “People” are grandiose concepts that lead [...]

Xavier Villaurrutia conducts a retrospective of Mexican painting in the 1920s, the origin of which he ascribes to the revolutionary movement of the previous decade. In this context, the author criticizes those painters who continued to follow [...]

In this essay entitled “The Mexican School,” Laurence E. Schmeckebier analyzes the rise and evolution of the “Mexican School of Painting.” Schmeckebier places the origin of this “school” in the first generation of muralism and in [...]

Diego Rivera briefly reviews what he sees in the artists of the period and discusses the various trends in artistic expression in Mexico at the time, indicating his preference for murals with a nationalist theme. He claims that painters and the [...]

Diego Rivera begins his article on how children draw in Mexico by saying that he hates the instruction provided by the Academy, which starts by teaching children how to draw illustrations, then sculpture, and finally the nude model. Rivera criticizes [...]