Mexican Muralism

In this comprehensive collection of essays, three generations of international scholars examine Mexican muralism in its broad artistic and historical contexts, from its iconic figures—Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, and David Alfaro Siquieros—to their successors in Mexico, the United States, and across Latin America. These muralists conceived of their art as a political weapon in popular struggles over revolution and resistance, state modernization and civic participation, artistic freedom and cultural imperialism. The contributors to this volume show how these artists’ murals transcended borders to engage major issues raised by the many different forms of modernity that emerged throughout the Americas during the twentieth century.

Alejandro Anreus is Associate Professor of Art History and Latin American Studies at William Paterson University. He is the author of Orozco in Gringoland: The Years in New York .

Leonard Folgarait is Professor of Art and Art History at Vanderbilt University and the author of Mural Painting and Social Revolution in Mexico, 1920-1940: Art of the New Order.

Robin Adele Greeley is Associate Professor of Art History and Latin American Studies at the University of Connecticut and the author of Surrealism and the Spanish Civil War.

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments

Introduction
Robin Adèle Greeley

Part 1. Mexican Muralism: Beginnings, Development, Ideologies, and National Responses

1. Muralism and the State in Post-Revolution Mexico 1920 – 1970
Robin Adèle Greeley

2. Los Tres Grandes: Ideologies and Styles
Alejandro Anreus

3. “All Mexico on a Wall”: Diego Rivera’s Murals at the Ministry of Public Education
Mary K. Coffey

4. Siqueiros’ Communist Proposition for Mexican Muralism: A Mural for the Mexican Electricians’ Syndicate
Jennifer A. Jolly

5. José Clemente Orozco’s Use of Architecture in the Dartmouth Mural
Leonard Folgarait

6. Murales Estridentes: Tensions and Affinities between Estridentismo and Early Muralism
Tatiana Flores

7. Young Muralists at the Abelardo L. Rodríguez Market
Esther Acevedo

8. Nietzsche contra Marx in Mexico: The Contemporáneos, Muralism, and Debates over “Revolutionary” Art in 1930s Mexico
Robin Adèle Greeley

Part 2. Muralism’s Hemispheric Influences

9. Siqueiros’ Travels and “Alternative Muralisms” in Argentina
and Cuba
Alejandro Anreus

10. Social Realism and Constructivist Abstraction: The Limits of the Debate on Muralism in the Río de la Plata Region (1930 – 1950)
Gabriel Peluffo Linari

11. Mexican Muralism in the United States: Controversies, Paradoxes, and Publics
Anna Indych-López

Part 3. Contemporary Responses to Muralism

12. Murals and Marginality in Mexico City: The Case of Tepito Arte Acá
Leonard Folgarait

13. Radical Mestizaje in Chicano/a Murals
Holly Barnet-Sanchez

14. An Unauthorized History of Post – Mexican School Muralism
Bruce Campbell

Part 4. Chronology and Primary Texts

Chronology
Alejandro Anreus with Holly Barnet-Sanchez and Bruce Campbell

Primary Texts
edited by Alejandro Anreus

Manifesto of the Syndicate of Technical Workers, Painters and Sculptors
(Mexico City, 1923)
José Clemente Orozco, “New World, New Races and New Art”
(New York, 1929)
Diego Rivera, “The Revolutionary Spirit in Modern Art”
(Baltimore, 1932)
David Alfaro Siqueiros, “A Call to Argentine Artists”
(Buenos Aires, 1933)
David Alfaro Siqueiros, “Toward a Transformation of the Plastic Arts”
(New York, 1934)
José Clemente Orozco, “Orozco ‘Explains’ ”
(New York, 1940)

Bibliography
Contributors
Index