Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

While living in exile on the Turkish island of Büyükada, Leon Trotsky writes to Diego Rivera, “a close friend of the left wing opposition,” in Mexico. In his letter, the Russian revolutionary recalls his first exposure to reproductions of [...]

In the words of Diego Rivera, certain artists made use of the concepts of jingoism and patriotism in a manner that led to the creation of a completely bourgeois art form. He sees, as an example, the ghost of Nazism and the persecution of the Jews in [...]

This article by Diego Rivera discusses the position of the artist in the Soviet Union. For Rivera, the most salient aspect of Soviet artistic production was the theater, which works for the masses and, in turn, the masses consume it. Western or [...]

The mural being painted by David Alfaro Siqueiros at the Escuela Universitaria de Bellas Artes in San Miguel Allende would be interrupted by disagreements with the school’s director, Alfredo Campanella. The director offers Siqueiros a change in his [...]

David Alfaro Siqueiros writes a letter to Teresa León from a military command post in Spain during the Civil War, telling her of his combat experiences at the front and comparing procedures there with artistic work. He sees that in both there are [...]

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 [...]

The text Cry for Justice is composed of three parts: a statement entitled “To Listen and to Act,” photographs with extended captions of murals in Chicago since 1967, and an essay entitled “Museum of the Streets.” In the first part, the civil [...]

In this interview, Diego Rivera begins by defining art and explaining its importance to society. In his opinion, “art is better in a society where there are no class divisions.” According to him, “art is able to stimulate very specific [...]

Diego Rivera, the chairman of the Comité Ejecutivo del Bloque Obrero y Campesino Nacional (BOyC) [Executive Committee of the National Workers’ and Peasants’ Block], submits a request to El Machete to publish a statement on March 4, 1929. In the [...]

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 [...]

Jesús Guerrero Galván makes some observations about the production by Leopoldo Méndez, within the context of several group exhibitions that were held in 1926. He qualifies the social function of the œuvre by his colleague and considers his [...]

Inspired by the native talent of Mexican workers and peasants and their love of the visual arts, El Machete invited these two segments of their audience to be the sole participants in an ongoing drawing contest. The Sindicato de Pintores y Escultores [...]

This short article lists forty drawings that were published in El Machete in 1924 along with their titles, original dimensions, and prices, although the names of the draftsmen or the techniques used were not given. The drawings would be exhibited on [...]

The author appeals to workers and peasants so that they may learn to carefully elect their representatives to the Lower House, and eliminate the thieves and lawmakers bon vivants who squander for their own benefit six and a half million pesos of [...]

Diego Rivera, author of this essay, conducts a political analysis of the role that workers and peasants played as allies of the government in the struggle against the “reaction;” that is, a coup d’état carried out against the government that [...]

This document analyzes the national repercussions that the Sindicato de Obreros Técnicos, Pintores y Escultores [SOTPE, Union of Technical Workers, Painters and Sculptors] had on an art scene that was then dominated by individualism. Siqueiros [...]

In this article, Diego Rivera affirms that he does not know Alvarado Rubio, an employee of the Embassy of Guatemala during the regime of dictator Carlos Castillo Armas, and that it is from there that the lies published in Impacto begin. Rivera also [...]

This article places Diego Rivera’s Trotskyist period within his phase of painting murals in the United States and in Mexico. It reveals affinities and differences he had with various intellectuals and artists’ organizations, as well as his [...]

The article refers to the “revolutionary painter brigades” commissioned by the Departamento de Bellas Artes to represent “the Mexican socialist struggle” and the “philosophy of the new teaching” in various murals within official schools [...]

David Alfaro Siqueiros attempts to answer the question: “If you were nominated by the El Colegio Nacional to replace José Clemente Orozco, what would you say?” He replies in a long, complex, four-page essay. He eschews a yes or a no answer and [...]

Ernestine Evans reviews Diego Rivera’s murals, referring to their artistic and political values. In this introductory essay she discusses the murals at the Escuela Nacional Preparatoria, the SEP (Ministry of Public Education), and the School of [...]

During the construction of Mexico City’s UNAM campus, which was begun in 1950, architects and artists worked together to create buildings with murals on exterior walls. In this lengthy lecture, David Alfaro Siqueiros outlines the history of [...]

In 1964, journalist Julio Scherer García received the manuscript of David Alfaro Siqueiros’s autobiography. Three years earlier, in 1961, Scherer García had gone to Lecumberri Prison and managed to obtain some 387 pages. Siqueiros asked him to [...]

Once the Centro de Arte Realista was founded, David Alfaro Siqueiros refers to the successes of the last 40 days. He awaits the response from the opposition to the proposals made about “La Pintura Mexicana Moderna”. The Centro’s first success [...]

In El Machete, number 13 (September 11-18, 1924), Siqueiros rails against the recent desecration of Orozco and Rivera’s murals. He accuses as false revolutionaries those who minimize the problem and complains that reactionaries have free rein at [...]

David Alfaro Siqueiros, writing in El Machete, invites the proletariat to discuss their problems. His goal is to counter the middle-class press, where the disenfranchised are unrepresented. The article explains that the walls of public buildings have [...]

The Manifesto of the Sindicato de Obreros Técnicos Pintores y Escultores (SOTPE) [Technical Workers, Painters, and Sculptors Union] was published in El Machete toward the end of June 1924. It was an attempt to warn the proletariat and the indigenous [...]

Oscar Leblanc interviews Diego Rivera about the destruction of the mural that Rivera painted at the Rockefeller Center in New York. Leblanc asks Rivera about his reaction to the news, and questions him about the terms of the contract, since it had [...]

Martí Casanovas discusses the two qualities to be found in Tina Modotti’s photographs, referring on the one hand to the formalist, aesthetic value of her work and, on the other, highlighting its social importance as a propaganda tool used on [...]

Gerardo Murillo (Dr. Atl) is accused of pretending that General Esteban Cantú, an ardent supporter of President Venustiano Carranza, should rebel against the established government. By denouncing this “attempt” of coup d’état, the General [...]

This article shows how the personalities in arts and politics are intimately linked. The long essay describes the defense that Dr. Atl made of a "seat" in the National Congress. It is about a lawmakers’ bench. In these elections, in spite of having [...]

This article describes the lyrical spirit—pervaded by a proletarian ideology—that characterizes the work of the poet, painter and Mexican worker Rosendo Salazar. The author considers his work part of the school that sees art as a powerful medium [...]

In his essay written in the form of a letter, David Alfaro Siqueiros refers to four of José Clemente Orozco’s major areas of interest as he looks back on the life of the recently deceased painter, identifying him as an artist and a friend, and as [...]