David Alfaro Siqueiros, Echo of a Scream, 1937

Juan Sanchez: I came across this painting when I was an undergraduate art student at Cooper Union.

Narrator: The influence of the Mexican muralists continues even today. Artist Juan Sanchez says that Echo of a Scream frequently resurfaces in his mind when he’s doing his own work—decades after his first encounter with it.

Juan Sanchez: It’s not just a head coming out of the mouth, it’s an echo. That echo speaks to a cry that people may hear or, for the most part, may not hear at all. The way the figure is placed in a space where what you see is mass destruction. The impact of war, where there’s always innocent people involved.

He put so much in layers in this particular painting, which is not all that big. It’s 48 by 36 inches, and yet, it has a monumentality. It’s a question of you looking at that painting, and instead of having to step back to look at it, you have to go further and further, closer to it. It’s like you want to inwardly enter into that space. In other cases, because of the horror and the terror of such a scene, people like to walk away, but they can’t help but go closer to it because the painting is that evocative.