El Salvador, officially the Republic of El Salvador, is a country in Central America. It is bordered on the northeast by Honduras, on the northwest by Guatemala, and on the south by the Pacific Ocean. El Salvador's capital and largest city is San Salvador. The country's population in 2021 is estimated to be 6.8 million.
David Alfaro Siqueiros was a Mexican social realist painter, best known for his large public murals using the latest in equipment, materials and technique. Along with Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco, he was one of the most famous of the "Mexican muralists". He was a member of the Mexican Communist Party, and a Stalinist and supporter of the Soviet Union who led an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate Leon Trotsky in May 1940.
Vladimir Victorovich KibalchichRusakov was a Russian-Mexican painter, known simply as "Vlady" in Mexico. He came to Mexico as a refugee from Russia together with his father, writer Victor Serge. Attracted to painting from his exposure in Europe, Vlady quickly became part of Mexico's artistic and intellectual scene, with his first individual exhibition in 1945, two years after his arrival to the country.
Roberto Montenegro Nervo was a painter, muralist and illustrator, who was one of the first to be involved in the Mexican muralism movement after the Mexican Revolution. His most important mural work was done at the former San Pedro and San Pablo monastery but as his work did not have the same drama as other muralists, such as Diego Rivera, he lost prominence in this endeavor. Most of his career is dedicated to illustration and publishing, portrait painting and the promotion of Mexican handcrafts and folk art.
Luis Nishizawa was a Mexican artist known for his landscape work and murals, which often show Japanese and Mexican influence. He began formal training as an artist in 1942 at the height of the Mexican muralism movement but studied other painting styles as well as Japanese art. In addition to painting canvases and murals, including murals made with ceramics, he was a professor of fine arts at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México from which he received an honorary doctorate. The State of Mexico, where he was born, created the Museo Taller Luis Nishizawa to honor and promote his life’s work.
José Raúl Anguiano Valadez was a notable Mexican painter of the 20th century, part of the “second generation” of Mexican muralists which continued the tradition of Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiros but experimented with it as well. Anguiano was born during the height of the Mexican Revolution, which would inspire a majority of his mural painting. He studied painting in his hometown of Guadalajara before moving to Mexico City to begin his career. His first major exhibition was held at the Palacio de Bellas Artes, at age 20. His works include over 100 individual and collective exhibitions with 50 murals, mostly in Mexico and the United States. As he continued his artistry with aspects of the Mexican muralism movement, he also experimented with other styles such as Cubism, Surrealism and Expressionism, with themes such as clowns and prostitutes. However, his most famous painting is “La espina” which depicts a Mayan woman digging a thorn out of her foot with a knife. His later works concentrated on depicting Mexico in vivid colors and traditional imagery.
Judith Francisca Baca is an artist, activist, and professor of Chicano studies, world arts, and cultures based at the University of California, Los Angeles. She is the co-founder and artistic director of the Social and Public Art Resource Center (SPARC) in Venice, California. Baca is the director of the mural project that created the Great Wall of Los Angeles, which is the largest communal mural project in the world.
José Chávez Morado was a Mexican artist who was associated with the Mexican muralism movement of the 20th century. His generation followed that of Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiros. Although Chávez Morado took classes in California and Mexico, he is considered to be mostly self-taught. He experimented with various materials, and was an early user of Italian mosaic in monumental works. His major works include murals at the Ciudad Universitaria, Secretaría de Comunicaciones y Transportes and Museo Nacional de Antropología in Mexico City as well as frescos at the Alhóndiga de Granaditas, which took twelve years to paint. From the 1940s on, he also worked as a cultural promoter, establishing a number of cultural institutions especially in his home state of Guanajuato including the Museo de Arte Olga Costa - José Chávez Morado, named after himself and his wife, artist Olga Costa.
Mexican Muralism refers to an art project funded by the Mexican government in an attempt to reunify the country under the government post-Mexican Revolution. The project was to allow artists to promote political ideas regarding the social revolution that had just recently ended so that viewers may reflect on how pivotal the revolution was in Mexican history. This was accomplished by way of painting murals, large artworks painted onto the wall itself, containing general social and political messages. Beginning in the 1920s, the muralist project was headed by a group of artists known as "The Big Three" or "The Three Greats". This group was composed of Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiros. From the 1920s to the 1970s, many murals with nationalistic, social and political messages were displayed in many public settings such as chapels, schools, government buildings, and much more. The popularity of the Mexican muralist project started a tradition which continues to this day in Mexico; a tradition that has had a significant impact in other parts of the Americas, including the United States, where it served as inspiration for the Chicano art movement.
Jorge González Camarena was a Mexican painter, muralist and sculptor. He is best known for his mural work, as part of the Mexican muralism movement, although his work is distinct from the main names associated with it. His major works include the mural on the main administration building of the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Studies and a mural created for the Universidad de Concepción in Chile. He also created easel works, one of which, La Patria, was well known in Mexico as it was used on the cover of free textbooks from the 1960s into the 1970s. Recognitions for his work include the Premio Nacional de Arte, membership in the Academia de Artes and the Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana, grade Commendatore from the Italian government.
Amado de la Cueva was a Mexican painter. De la Cueva studied in Rome. After his return to Mexico in September 1922, he painted amongst others together with Diego Rivera his murals at the Secretaría de Educación Pública. On October 16, 1923, he returned to his home town, where he painted the murals at Universidad de Guadalajara's assembly hall together with David Alfaro Siqueiros and Carlos Orozco after 1925.
Nicolás Moreno was a Mexican landscape painter, considered to be one of the best of this genre of the 20th century, as well as heir to the Mexican tradition of José María Velasco and Dr. Atl. Although he was born in Mexico City in 1923, he had early contact with nature, traveling with his grandfather and living briefly in Celaya, Guanajuato. He studied art at the country’s Escuela Nacional de Artes Plásticas but was temporarily discouraged when he was told that landscape painting was a “minor genre.” His work almost completely focuses on the varied landscapes of Mexico, mostly to document it, including environmental degradation. His landscape work includes that which appeared in over 100 individual exhibitions in Mexico and abroad as well as a number of important murals including those at the Museo Nacional de Antropología.
Fernando Leal was one of the first painters to participate in the Mexican muralism movement starting in the 1920s. After seeing one of his paintings, Secretary of Education José Vasconcelos invited Leal to paint at the Escuela Nacional Preparatoria. The resulting work is Los danzantes de Chalma. Leal also painted a mural dedicated to Simón Bolívar at the Anfiteatro Bolivar, as well as religious murals such as those at the chapel dedicated to the Virgin of Guadalupe at the Basilica Villa in Tepeyac.
Xavier Guerrero was one of the pioneers of the Mexican muralism movement in the early 20th century. He learned painting working with his father, who worked in masonry and decorating, with evidence that his ability was mostly self-taught. In 1912, he moved to Guadalajara and began painting murals, moving to Mexico City in 1919 just as the muralism movement was about to begin. Most of his work was in collaboration with or subordinate to other painters such as Diego Rivera and David Alfaro Siqueiros, working at the San Ildefonso College, the Secretaría de Educación Pública building and the Universidad Autónoma de Chapingo; however, much of his other work has been lost. While best known for his mural work, his later canvas work is considered to be better.
Generación de la Ruptura is the name given by art critic Teresa del Conde to the generation of Mexican artists against the established Mexican School of Painting, more commonly called Mexican muralism post World War II. It began with the criticisms of José Luis Cuevas in the early 1950s, followed by others who thought the established art had become dogmatic, formulaic and nationalistic and the artists too deferential to the government. This new generation of artists was not bound by a particular artistic style but was more interested in personal rather than social issues and influenced by a number of international trends in art such as Abstract expressionism. Early reaction to them was strong and negative but by the end of the 1950s, they had succeeded in having their art shown in the major venues of Mexico. The Generación de la Ruptura had influence on other arts in Mexico, such as literature but it did not end the production of murals in Mexico with social and nationalist purposes.
Jesús Álvarez Amaya was a Mexican painter and graphic artist, mostly known for mural work and his graphic work as head of the Taller de Gráfica Popular, which he led from 1967 until his death. His murals can be found in various parts of the country and his art mostly have social and political themes.
Francisco Icaza was a Mexican artist best known for his drawings about his travels and his oil paintings. He spent much of his life living in and visiting various countries around the world. He began painting as a child while living as a refugee in the Mexican embassy in Germany. Icaza exhibited his work both in Mexico and abroad in Europe, South America, the Middle East, Asia and India, most notably at his three major solo exhibitions at the Museo de Arte Moderno in Mexico City. He also painted a mural dedicated to Bertolt Brecht, La Farándula, at the Casino de la Selva in Cuernavaca, a focus of controversy when the work was moved and restored in the early 2000s. He painted additional murals for the Mexican Pavilion at the HemisFair in Texas ; for the Mexican Pavilion at Expo 67 in Montreal, Canada ; and for the Mexican Pavilion in Osaka at Expo '70. This last mural is held at the Museo de Arte Abstracto Manuel Felguérez in Zacatecas City. He was an active member of the Salón de la Plástica Mexicana and also a member and founder of several important Mexican artistic movements including Los Interioristas, El Salón Independiente, and La Confrontación 66.
Galo Galecio Taranto was a Ecuadorian painter, sculptor, caricaturist, and printmaker.
Margarita "Mago" Orona Gándara was a Chicana artist. She is known for her murals which can be seen throughout El Paso, Texas and in Ciudad Juárez.
Marta Ayala is a Salvadoran-American painter and a woman muralist in San Francisco. Her work involves experimenting with colors, themes, etc. She is not tied to a single theme, medium or style. The majority of her work revolves around engaging with the community by collaborating together with other artists and teaching classes. She experiments with various colors and uses easily definable lines in her paintings and murals. Ayala's paintings and murals display a mix of colorful images reminiscent of childhood, earthly materials such as rocks and water with a mix of ancient culture. This is the reason for the word "primitive" to describe her work.
