Vida Americana: Mexican Muralists Remake American Art, 1925–1945 | Art & Artists
Feb 17, 2020–Jan 31, 2021
Vida Americana: Mexican Muralists Remake American Art, 1925–1945 | Art & Artists
Siqueiros in Los Angeles
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David Alfaro Siqueiros was the most politically and artistically radical of the leading Mexican muralists, believing that art must be revolutionary not only in its political content but in its materials and techniques. Of the three murals he made in Los Angeles in 1932, Tropical America has proven the most lasting in its significance. Siqueiros’s encounter in Los Angeles with industrial technology and the Hollywood movie industry was formative in his artistic development, leading him to adopt the tools of industry—spray guns, blowtorches, airbrushes, and photo projections—and to establish a collectivist approach to art making, both of which aligned with his Communist ideology. The “Bloc of Mural Painters,” as he called his collaborator-assistants, included artists Luis Arenal, Philip Guston, Reuben Kadish, and Fletcher Martin. They were deeply influenced by Siqueiros’s aesthetic, especially his union of the sweeping rhythms of European Baroque art with the solid, monumental forms of Olmec and Aztec sculpture. As Kadish later asserted, “Siqueiros coming to L.A. meant as much then as did the Surrealists coming to New York in the Forties.”
David Alfaro Siqueiros, Proletarian Mother, 1929
David Alfaro Siqueiros, Proletarian Mother, 1929. Oil on burlap, 98 1/16 × 70 7/8 in. (249 × 180 cm). Museo Nacional de Arte, INBAL, Mexico City; constitutive collection, 1982 © 2020 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / SOMAAP, Mexico City. Reproduction authorized by El Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes Y Literatura, 2019
Artists
- Charles Henry Alston
- Ramón Alva Guadarrama
- Ramón Alva Guadarrama
- Lola Álvarez Bravo
- Lola Álvarez Bravo
- Luis Arenal
- Luis Arenal
- Belle Baranceanu
- Will Barnet
- Carleton Beals
- Carleton Beals
- Thomas Hart Benton
- Henry Bernstein
- Henry Bernstein
- Emil Bisttram
- Emil Bisttram
- Julius Bloch
- Lucienne Bloch
- Lucienne Bloch
- Anita Brenner
- Anita Brenner
- Jacob Burck
- Elizabeth Catlett
- Stuart Chase
- Stuart Chase
- Howard Cook
- Miguel Covarrubias
- Aaron Douglas
- Sergei Eisenstein
- Sergei Eisenstein
- Jesús Escobedo
- Jesús Escobedo
- Philip Evergood
- Seymour Fogel
- Ford Motor Company
- Ford Motor Company
- Raúl Gamboa
- Hugo Gellert
- Xavier Gonzalez
- Grace Greenwood
- Marion Greenwood
- William Gropper
- Philip Guston
- Eitarō Ishigaki
- Eitarō Ishigaki
- María Izquierdo
- María Izquierdo
- Everett Gee Jackson
- Joe Jones
- Reuben Kadish
- Frida Kahlo
- Frida Kahlo
- Jules Langsner
- Jacob Lawrence
- Harold Lehman
- Harold Lehman
- Michael Lenson
- Michael Lenson
- Mardonio Magaña
- Mardonio Magaña
- Bendor Mark
- Fletcher Martin
- Leopoldo Méndez
- Leopoldo Méndez
- Carlos Mérida
- Edward Millman
- Tina Modotti
- Tina Modotti
- Roberto Montenegro
- Roberto Montenegro
- Emilio Gómez Muriel
- Emilio Gómez Muriel
- Hideo Benjamin Noda
- Hideo Benjamin Noda
- Isamu Noguchi
- Pablo O'Higgins
- José Clemente Orozco
- Jackson Pollock
- Alfredo Ramos Martínez
- Anton Refregier
- Diego Rivera
- Diego Rivera
- Ben Shahn
- Henrietta Shore
- Mitchell Siporin
- David Alfaro Siqueiros
- David Alfaro Siqueiros
- Harry Sternberg
- Paul Strand
- Thelma Johnson Streat
- Thelma Johnson Streat
- Rufino Tamayo
- Rufino Tamayo
- Edward Weston
- Charles White
- Hale Aspacio Woodruff
- Fred Zinnemann