Paint the Revolution

The Offering, 1913
Saturnino Herrán, Mexican, 1887–1918
Oil on canvas
72 1/16 x 82 11/16 inches (183 x 210 cm)

Herrán represented scenes of everyday life and indigenous customs. Here he shows a group of figures traveling in a caravan of punt boats. In Mexico, orange marigolds are placed as offerings on altars and graves on the Day of the Dead.

Museo Nacional de Arte, INBA, Mexico City

Pyramid, Teotihuacán, c. 1917–21
Francisco Goitia, Mexican, 1882–1960
Oil on canvas
16 1/8 x 28 3/4 inches (41 x 73 cm)

In 1918 Goitia was hired to document the archaeological excavations at Teotihuacán, the most populous city in the Americas prior to 1500, located some thirty miles northeast of modern Mexico City. In this painting, he features the Pyramid of the Sun, the largest structure in the city. It was given this name by the Aztecs, who visited Teotihuacán centuries after it was abandoned.

Museo Francisco Goitia, INBA, Zacatecas, Mexico

Combat, 1925–28
José Clemente Orozco, Mexican, 1883–1949
Oil on canvas
26 3/8 x 33 9/16 inches (67 x 85.3 cm)

Orozco’s first depictions of revolutionary violence were fresco panels painted at the National Preparatory School, the leading high school in Mexico City, in the mid-1920s. He revisited the theme a few years later in easel paintings such as this example, which shows anonymous fighters tangled in battle.

Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil, INBA, Mexico City
© VEGAP, Madrid, 2016

Between 1923 and 1929, Diego Rivera created an estimated seventeen thousand square feet of murals and decorations for the headquarters of the Ministry of Public Education in Mexico City. A part of this project, known as the Ballad of the Revolution (1926–29), can be explored in the exhibition via a digital projection and an interactive touch screen.

Working for the Ministry of Public Education, painter Adolfo Best Maugard developed a method for teaching drawing based on design elements derived from pre-Columbian art. Maugard used this method in his own work, and it was later taught in elementary schools to help children express themselves and to instill national pride.

Tightrope Walker, 1932
María Izquierdo, Mexican, 1902–1955
Gouache on paper
9 7/8 x 12 3/4 inches (25 x 32.4 cm)

Izquierdo often attended circuses on the outskirts of Mexico City, and in the 1930s and 1940s she made watercolors of trapeze artists, rope walkers, trick riders, and animal trainers. Many of her performers are female, reflecting her interest in developing images that did not conform to conventional notions of femininity.

Dallas Museum of Art: Dallas Art Association Purchase, 1951.99

Portrait of Xavier Villaurrutia, c. 1921
Roberto Montenegro, Mexican, 1881–1968
Oil on canvas
31 1/8 x 21 5/8 inches (79 x 55 cm)

The Contemporáneos embraced the genre of informal portraiture, which focuses on expressing an individual’s personality and character. Here we see a leading Contemporáneos poet dressed in the style of a European dandy—an elegant, elite persona that diverged from prevailing notions of Mexican masculinity.

Collection of Lance Aaron and Family
© VEGAP, Madrid, 2016

Classical Landscape with Horse, 1934
Emilio Amero, Mexican, 1901–1976
Watercolor on paper
16 3/4 x 16 15/16 inches (42.5 x 43 cm)

The Contemporáneos argued that modern Mexican art should engage with international aesthetics. The nude figures in this painting possess a spirit of classicism that was strong across Europe in the 1920s.

Private Collection

My Dress Hangs There, 1933–38
Frida Kahlo, Mexican, 1907–1954
Oil and collage on Masonite
18 x 19 1/2 inches (45 x 49.5 cm)

Kahlo’s traditional Tehuana dress hangs at the center of an invented panorama of New York City. The artist began this scathing portrait of American modernity at the end of her US sojourn and completed it five years later in Mexico.

FEMSA Colllection, Monterrey, Mexico
© Banco de México Diego Rivera Frida Kahlo Museums Trust, Ciudad de México / VEGAP, Madrid, 2016

Winter, 1932
José Clemente Orozco, Mexican, 1883–1949
Oil on canvas
15 3/16 x 18 1/4 inches (38.6 x 46.4)

Orozco was determined to face the gritty reality of ordinary citizens in Depression-era New York, particularly people roaming the streets, perhaps searching for work.

Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil, INBA, Mexico City
© VEGAP, Madrid, 2016

Pottery Vendors, 1934
Alfredo Ramos Martínez, Mexican, 1871–1946
Tempera and charcoal on newsprint
22 5/8 x 16 5/8 inches (57.5 x 42.2 cm)

Ramos Martínez made unusual drawings on full sheets of the Los Angeles Times. He typically selected pages that made connections with the drawings’ subject matter: for this work, he drew images of Mexican women on the beauty column.

Private Collection

George Gershwin in a Concert Hall, 1936
David Alfaro Siqueiros, Mexican, 1896–1974
Oil on canvas
66 15/16 inches x 90 3/4 inches (170 x 230.5 cm)

Composer and pianist George Gershwin befriended Siqueiros in Mexico City in 1935. A year later, Siqueiros painted Gershwin’s portrait in New York

Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin
© VEGAP, Madrid, 2016

Troubled Waters, 1949
José Chávez Morado, Mexican, 1909–2002
Oil on canvas
41 3/4 x 53 1/8 inches (106 x 135 cm)

This allegory of social stratification, corruption, and other evils of modernization continues a perennial theme of modern Mexican art: life in the big city.

Acervo Patrimonial, Secretaría de Hacienda y Crédito Público, Mexico City
© VEGAP, Madrid, 2016

Mexico City, 1949
Juan O’Gorman, Mexican, 1905–1982
Tempera on Masonite
26 x 48 1/16 inches (66 x 122 cm)

In this scene of Mexico City, two hands hold a 1540 map of the gridded Aztec capital to connect the present to the past. Floating over the skyline are a feathered serpent representing the Mesoamerican deity Quetzalcoatl, the golden eagle from the Mexican coat of arms, and two nudes with a tricolor flag emblazoned with “Long Live Mexico.”

Museo de Arte Moderno, INBA, Mexico City
© VEGAP, Madrid, 2016