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Lot Essay
Siqueiros importance and power in the political culture of Mexico was most profoundly demonstrated by his second incarceration in 1960. He spent four years in jail for political crimes, accused of a variety of state and social undermining deeds including the organization of the famed teachers and student protest of August 1960. Almost half of those years he spent in limbo awaiting specific charges and trial. As he languished in the Lecumberi prison his enormous mural for El Castillo de Chapultapec awaited an uncertain fate.
El Castillo de Chapultépec was in the process of being converted into the Museo Naciónal de Historia when Siqueiros was commissioned in 1957 to paint a mural depicting the Revolution. The 419 square meter mural was an aggressive undertaking and Siqueiros was of course delighted to have such a large and important venue to display his history of the Revolution. Due to his incarceration the mural, entitled Del porfirismo a la Revolución, took ten years to complete, even with the technical innovations Siqueiros had developed for his mural work.
The central element of the mural is the 1906 miners' strike of Cananea which for Siqueiros was in many respects the birth of the Revolution. In chronological order, the mural begins with the bourgeoisie of the Porfiriato enjoying their elegance, but the edge of their world is encroached upon by the swelling momentum of the strike which becomes the buildup and arming of the proletariat army which is led by a mounted horseman and ends in a row of cadavers upon a volcanic mountain. While the mural presented this history, it was also strongly rooted in the contemporary situation and Siqueiros sentiments about the current state of Mexico; a Mexico of continued social inequality and deficient political rights. The artist never missed a moment to publicly critique the failings of a government to which he was vociferously opposed.
This study is for the nucleus of the mural. Here, the miners confront the mining company, an American concern, that is protected by hacendados. They battle over the Mexican flag--the true Mexicans fighting for their flag with the North American capitalist controlled Diaz army. No statement could be more direct; the miners are lead by a working class family and the mob behind them bears a dead miner aloft. In the actual mural, there are a hundred portraits of Revolutionary leaders in this army of miners. In the present study, the technical aspects of the mural are worked out--the strength of the diagonal projections, the force of the struggle over the flag, the power of the swelling mobs of determination converging, pushing each other and ready to explode in the war all become realized. It is thrilling to see the deliberate way in which Siqueiros creates the feeling of two tectonic masses speeding toward each other resulting in the trembling earth and eruption of the revolution.
This picture is sold with a certificate of authenticity from Adriana Siqueiros and is dated 18 August, 1999.
This painting will also be listed in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné of the artist's oeuvre being prepared by Patrimonio Artístico Nacional, Mexico City.
El Castillo de Chapultépec was in the process of being converted into the Museo Naciónal de Historia when Siqueiros was commissioned in 1957 to paint a mural depicting the Revolution. The 419 square meter mural was an aggressive undertaking and Siqueiros was of course delighted to have such a large and important venue to display his history of the Revolution. Due to his incarceration the mural, entitled Del porfirismo a la Revolución, took ten years to complete, even with the technical innovations Siqueiros had developed for his mural work.
The central element of the mural is the 1906 miners' strike of Cananea which for Siqueiros was in many respects the birth of the Revolution. In chronological order, the mural begins with the bourgeoisie of the Porfiriato enjoying their elegance, but the edge of their world is encroached upon by the swelling momentum of the strike which becomes the buildup and arming of the proletariat army which is led by a mounted horseman and ends in a row of cadavers upon a volcanic mountain. While the mural presented this history, it was also strongly rooted in the contemporary situation and Siqueiros sentiments about the current state of Mexico; a Mexico of continued social inequality and deficient political rights. The artist never missed a moment to publicly critique the failings of a government to which he was vociferously opposed.
This study is for the nucleus of the mural. Here, the miners confront the mining company, an American concern, that is protected by hacendados. They battle over the Mexican flag--the true Mexicans fighting for their flag with the North American capitalist controlled Diaz army. No statement could be more direct; the miners are lead by a working class family and the mob behind them bears a dead miner aloft. In the actual mural, there are a hundred portraits of Revolutionary leaders in this army of miners. In the present study, the technical aspects of the mural are worked out--the strength of the diagonal projections, the force of the struggle over the flag, the power of the swelling mobs of determination converging, pushing each other and ready to explode in the war all become realized. It is thrilling to see the deliberate way in which Siqueiros creates the feeling of two tectonic masses speeding toward each other resulting in the trembling earth and eruption of the revolution.
This picture is sold with a certificate of authenticity from Adriana Siqueiros and is dated 18 August, 1999.
This painting will also be listed in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné of the artist's oeuvre being prepared by Patrimonio Artístico Nacional, Mexico City.