David Alfaro Siqueiros
Courtsey of MOLAA (Museum of Latin American Art)
Artist and political activist, David Alfaro Siqueiros (1896 -1974), was a vital member of the Mexican School of Painting along with Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco. He continues to be viewed as one of the most important Mexican artists of the twentieth century while his artistic influence spread far beyond Mexico’s borders. Siqueiros was...
Diego Rivera
Faithful…to his art and politics
It is with delicious irony that Diego Rivera was born in Guanajuato. In the indigenous Tarascon dialect, the name Guanajuato means: place of frogs. Often endearingly and sometimes not, Rivera, with rounded chin and eyes bulging with imagination acquired the nickname ‘Frog’. Rivera’s claims to history include his tumultuous two marriages with Frida Kahlo and...
Museo Dolores Olmedo
Tranquillity in the Big City
You can travel thirty-two kilometers from the zocalo (town square) to the quaint canals of Xochimilco and still be in Mexico City. Just short of this is a retreat, the sixteenth century monastery/hacienda/Museo Dolores Olmedo, home to the largest private collection of original Diego Rivera paintings, Frida Kahlo works and the largest private collection of...
Beyond the Labyrinth
Latin American Art and the FEMSA Collection
May 1-June 18, Beyond the Labyrinth: Latin American Art and the FEMSA Collection, Mexican Cultural Institute, 2829 16th Street, NW Washington, D.C. Featuring 50 works from renown 20th century Latin American artists, including Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo (Mexico), Wifredo Lam (Cuba) and Fernando Botero (Colombia), the exhibition is organized into six thematic sections that span...
Shattered Glass
Rethinking the Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil Collection
Dec 1- 18, Shattered Glass: Rethinking the Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil Collection, Americas Society, 680 Park Avenue, New York, NY. Through the study of contemporary art and Mexican high modernist masterpieces in the collection of the Carrillo Gil Museum of Art, the curatorial team reexamines the artworks in a new context relating to the...
¡Viva Mexico! ¡Viva La Revolucion!
Celebrating the 100th Anniversary of the Mexican Revolution
Mexico’s history is laden with severe social and economic challenges. In the beginning of the twentieth century under the rule of Porifirio Diaz (1867-1911), political corruption and the ever widening gap between rich and poor caused the country to erupt in a bloody revolution that lasted from 1910 until 1920. Once the Constitution of 1917...
Day of the Dead
Dia de los Muertos
The ritual known today as Diá de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, has been celebrated by the indigenous populations of Mexico for at least 3,000 years. Ancient civilizations believed that death was the continuation of life not the end. That living was just a dream and only in death did they become truly...
Guanajuato, a colonial gem
Guanajuato is yet another of Mexico’s impressive collection of colonial cities. Once you’ve been there, though, the subterranean streets running beneath it for about three kilometers guarantee you won’t confuse this old silver mining town with any other. Trivia buffs know, “Once Upon a Time in Mexico,” was filmed here. Originally, the city was built...
Frida’s Father
Despite the sufferings of ill health, Guillermo Kahlo made pictures that remain a legacy to Mexican art and culture. Like daughter, like father… Mexican artist Frida Kahlo shared many things with her father; she had his dark eyes and his powerful intellect, and the inspired restiveness of the one was common to the other. Both...
