David Alfaro Siqueiros was perhaps the most important communist painter of the twentieth century. This book, the first sustained engagement with Siqueiros’s work in the English language, focuses on the artist’s late murals, which are both aesthetically innovative and politically provocative. It places Siqueiros in an international context, revealing that the dogmatism he has been charged with was in reality a complex phenomenon. It provided a foundation for – rather than an obstacle to – his efforts to create an art embedded in the day-to-day concerns and theoretical debates of the world-wide mass movement he saw himself as a part of.
This book interprets the later murals of the Mexican painter David Alfaro Siqueiros in light of his Marxist internationalism.
Arvustused
A timely and important study, providing rich insight into Siqueiross place with international communist intellectual and visual culture. Professor Jennifer Jolly, Ithaca College
'Curtis Swopes enthusiasm for his subject imbues every page. Probing Siqueiross engagement with wide-ranging international Marxist debates regarding political art, the author deftly takes us through the artists development of an innovative war and post-war modernist realism.' Professor Robin Greeley, University of Connecticut -- .
Introduction
1 The war murals
2 Cuauhtémoc in the time of Stalin
3 Transition, contradiction, innovation
4 History at Chapultepec
5 Science, revolution and revision
6 Old left, new left and national culture at the Jorge Negrete Theater
7 Waiting for revolution
Conclusion
Index -- .
Curtis Swope is a Professor of German at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas -- .