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- David Alfáro Siqueiros
- Also known as
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David Alfáro Siqueiros
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primary name: Siqueiros, David Alfáro
- Details
- individual; painter/draughtsman; printmaker; Mexican; Male
- Life dates
- 1896-1974
- Biography
- Text from Dawn Adès and Alison McClean, 'Revolution on Paper, Mexican Prints 1910-1960', with the assistance of Laura Campbell, BMP, 2009
Born in Chihuahua, Mexico, in 1896, David Alfaro Siqueiros trained as an artist at the Academy of San Carlos in Mexico City from 1911. A scholarship from the Mexican government enabled him to study in Europe from 1919 to 1922. He rejected the traditional values of art, devoting himself instead to making art available to the masses. Siqueiros was always very politically active, and later in life he wrote about the relationship between art and politics in twentieth-century Mexican art in his book 'Art and Revolution' (1973).
As a printmaker Siqueiros worked mainly in woodcut and lithography, producing images on themes such as labour, capitalism and social justice. Some of his prints appeared in 'El Machete', an illustrated magazine he founded in 1924 with Diego Rivera and Xavier Guerrero. Published initially for the Sindicato de los Obreros Técnicos, Pintores y Escultores (Syndicate of Technical Workers, Painters and Sculptors), 'El Machete' later became the official publication of the Mexican Communist Party - a cause supported by Siqueiros.
Alongside Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco, Siqueiros was one of three mural painters known collectively as Los Tres Grandes (the Three Greats) who decorated the walls of public buildings not only in Mexico City but throughout the country and in the United States. In Mexico City Siqueiros worked on murals at the Escuela Nacional Preparatoria (National Preparatory School), the Poliforum and the National History Museum. Between 1925 and 1930 he became less active as an artist, devoting himself instead to politics. In the 1930s his political activity took him to Spain, where he fought against General Franco in the Spanish Civil War. He returned to Mexico in 1939 but was exiled to Chile in 1941, having been imprisoned for his involvement in a plot to assassinate Leon Trotsky in Mexico City. He also travelled to Uruguay, Argentina, Cuba and the United States, where his commitment to political causes continued to influence his work.
- Bibliography
- Reba and Dave Williams et al. 'Mexican Prints from the collection of Reba and Dave Williams', New York, 1998, with checklist of Siqueiros's lithographs, 1929-1946
James Oles, 'Portrait of a decade, David Alfaro Siqueiros 1930-40', Mexico City, Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes, 1997 (with catalogue of prints)
