Richard Schaaf of Azul Editions, a small independent press, informed me of some exciting news. A long out of print book by famed Mexican Muralist, David Alfaro Siqueiros, has been translated into English and republished by Azul Editions. How to Paint a Mural is the Mexican master’s instructional essay on the fine art of creating a public wall mural. It…
One of the books I’m currently reading is artist Jean Charlot’s, The Mexican Mural Renaissance. Written in 1963, the book is a recollection of the French painter’s active participation in the Mexican Mural movement circa 1920-1925. Charlot befriended artists Siqueiros, Rivera, Orozco and others, at a time when their very first murals were being produced. Charlot himself created fresco murals…
I’ve created a brand new website that reveals the history of the Mexican Muralist Movement and one American artist’s personal connection to it. Philip Stein, also known as Estaño, worked alongside the famed Mexican Muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros from 1948 to 1958. He assisted the Mexican master in painting some of his most famous murals. I began corresponding with Estaño…
Worker’s Meeting (or “Mitin Obrero”), was a two-story mural painted by Mexican artist David Alfaro Siqueiros. Created on an outside wall of the Chouinard School of Art in Los Angeles, it depicted a militant union organizer addressing a multi-ethnic crowd on a LA street corner. The mural was revolutionary in more ways than one. It was the first time anyone…
Diego Rivera painted his glorious oil painting, Nude with Calla Lilies, in 1944. Rivera was known as a fiery radical and an artist who helped create a national art for his Mexican homeland… a genre of social realism that’s come to be known as the Mexican School. Rivera painted an endless number of monumental fresco murals and easel paintings that…
