Paint the Revolution:
Mexican Modernism, 1910-1950
October
25, 2016-January 8, 2017
The
Philadelphia Museum of Art, in partnership with the Museo del Palacio de Bellas
Artes in Mexico City, will present a landmark exhibition that takes a new and
long overdue look at an extraordinary moment in the history of Mexican art. Paint the Revolution: Mexican Modernism,
1910-1950 will explore the rich and fascinating story of a period of
remarkable change. It will be the most comprehensive exhibition of Mexican
modernism to be seen in the United States in more than seven decades and will feature an
extraordinary range of images, from portable murals and large and small
paintings to prints and photographs, books and broadsheets. In this country, Paint the Revolution, will be seen only
in Philadelphia before traveling to Mexico City in 2017.
Timothy
Rub, The George D. Widener Director and CEO, Philadelphia Museum of Art,
stated: “The contributions of Mexico during this period are central to the
development of modern art, and yet its achievements have been largely
understood through the work of a small group of great talents, among them Diego
Rivera, José Clemente
Orozco, and David Alfaro Siqueiros, along with Frida Kahlo and Rufino Tamayo.
In this exhibition, visitors will be introduced to these artists through the
presentation of many of their finest works, but also, and more importantly, to
the broader panorama of Mexican art during this period and the historical
context in which the visual arts played an enormously important role. We are
especially grateful for our partnership with the Museo del Palacio de Bellas
Artes, without which it would not be possible to have organized an exhibition of
such depth.”
Miguel Fernández Félix, Director of the Museo del Palacio
de Bellas Artes, stated: “The exhibition will present this fascinating story in
unprecedented detail and will benefit from the work of a young generation of
scholars who have broken new ground in their research. Together with the
Philadelphia Museum of Art, which has long been dedicated to the acquisition
and display of modern Mexican art, we are pleased to expand the public’s
understanding of this important era, including its broader connections to both
Europe and the United States. Visitors will witness a spectacular range of work
by artists who are well known in Mexico but who will become fresh discoveries
for most Americans.”
Paint the Revolution spans four momentous decades. It will
begin by surveying modern art in Mexico City during the revolutionary decade of
the 1910s, clearly demonstrating that while many artists engaged with
international avant-garde styles, such as Impressionism, Symbolism, and Cubism,
they also infused their work with facets of ancient and modern Mexican culture.
The exhibition will also explore the artistic experimentation and social
idealism of the early post-Revolutionary period, when painters rallied to
support the government’s program of national reconstruction and there was growing
international recognition of Mexico’s cultural importance. It will also
consider the principal avant-garde groups—such as the Stridentists and the
Contemporaries—active in Mexico City during this period who pursued alternative
directions in post-revolutionary culture, turning away from folkloric and
historical subjects and focusing on themes of modern urban life.
In
the 1920s and 1930s the development of a vibrant support network and a robust
market for modern art in the United States drew Mexican artists northward. The
exhibition will follow a number of Mexican painters during their American
sojourns, highlighting images with both Mexican and U.S. themes, and focusing
on works that dramatized the encounter between south and north, between Hispano-
and Anglo-America. Paint the Revolution will
conclude with the renewal of socially and politically oriented art in Mexico
from the mid-1930s through the aftermath of the Second World War.
The
exhibition takes its title from an essay called Paint the Revolution by the American novelist John Dos Passos who
traveled to Mexico City in 1926-27 and witnessed the murals created by Diego Rivera
that celebrate the ideals of the Mexican Revolution. In order to represent
Mexican muralism and share with visitors masterpieces by Rivera,
Orozco, and Siqueiros, the
exhibition will present in digital form three important murals created by these
three artists—often called los tres
grandes (the three great ones)—in Mexico and the United States.
This exhibition is curated by a team of specialists including
Matthew Affron, the Muriel and Philip Berman Curator of Modern Art; Mark A. Castro, Project Assistant Curator,
European Painting, Philadelphia Museum of Art; Dafne Cruz Porchini, Postdoctoral Researcher, Colegio de
México, Mexico City; and Renato
González Mello, Director of the Institute for Aesthetic Investigation, National
Autonomous University of Mexico.
Matthew Affron stated: “Paint the Revolution will touch on all aspects of modern art in
Mexico. Though the mural painting tradition remains that country’s best-known
contribution to modernism in the visual arts, it is part of a much broader story.
Artists were innovating in every possible medium, including painting, sculpture,
printmaking, and photography. Their work cut across all classifications, from
the epic to the lyric. Visitors to the exhibition will find many surprises.”
Location
Dorrance Special Exhibition Galleries, Philadelphia Museum of Art
Itinerary
Paint the Revolution will travel to the Museo
del Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City,
in 2017.
Publication
Paint
the Revolution will be accompanied by an
exhibition catalogue, published in English and Spanish editions, which offers a
comprehensive treatment of Mexican art during four decades that transformed the
country’s cultural life and marked its emergence as a widely watched center for
modern art. Published jointly by the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Museo
del Palacio de Bellas Artes (with the English version distributed by Yale
University Press), this richly illustrated publication will present full-color
reproductions of the works in the exhibition as well as fourteen essays that
contain a wealth of new research, by Mexican and U.S. scholars, on mural and
easel painting, printmaking, photography, film, and architecture; diverse
artists’ groups; and the involvement of the Mexican state in culture during
this rich period. It promises to become the text of record for this subject.
Images in the Exhibition:
Images in the Exhibition:
Peasants, c. 1913. David Alfaro Siqueiros, Mexican, 1896 ‑ 1974. Pastel on
paper, Museo Nacional de Arte, INBA
Sunrise Over the Mountains, c.
1916. Dr. Atl (Gerardo Murillo), Mexican, 1875 ‑ 1964. Atl color on cardboard, Museo
Regional de Guadalajara, INBA
Portrait of Martín Luis Guzmán, 1915.
José Diego María Rivera, Mexican, 1886‑1957. Oil on canvas, Fundación Televisa
Collection
Liberation of the Peon, 1931. José Diego María
Rivera, Mexican, 1886 ‑ 1957. Fresco, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Gift of Mr.
and Mrs. Herbert Cameron Morris, 1943, © 2014 Banco de México Diego Rivera
Frida Kahlo Museums Trust, Mexico, D.F./Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Zapata, 1931. David Alfaro Siqueiros, Mexican, 1896 ‑ 1974. Lithograph,
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Purchased with the Lola Downin Peck Fund from the
Carl and Laura Zigrosser Collection, 1976. © Artists Rights Society (ARS), New
York / SOMAAP, Mexico City
Proletarian Hand, 1932. Leopoldo Méndez, Mexican, 1902- 1969, Wood engraving, Philadelphia
Museum of Art, Gift of Anne d'Harnoncourt in memory of Sarah Carr
d'Harnoncourt, 2003
My Dress Hangs There ( Mi vestido cuelga ahi), 1933‑1938.
Frida Kahlo, Mexican, 1907‑1954. Oil and collage on masonite, Colección FEMSA
George Gershwin in a Concert Hall, 1936. David
Alfaro Siqueiros, Mexican, 1896–1974, Oil on canvas, Harry Ransom Center, The University of Texas at Austin
Mexico City, 1949. Juan O’Gorman, Mexican, 1905‑1982. Tempera on masonite,
Acervo CONACULTA ‑ INBA, Museo de Arte Moderno
