Online Encyclopedia
David Alfaro Siqueiros
David Alfaro Siqueiros (December 29, 1896 - January 6, 1974) was a Mexican painter and muralist. He was known for his social realist work, including many murals depicting Mexican history.
Siqueiros (see-KAY-ros) was not just an extraordinary painter, but a polemicist, a theoretician of art, a politician and a revolutionary. Siqueiros was a highly talented young man. He was mostly known as one of the most prolific muralist painters in the early 1900s. His art covered many vast walls and ceiling that reflected his engrossment in social problems in Mexico.
Siqueiros was compared and constrasted with other great Mexican artists during his life. There were other highly famous Mexican muralist in his time period; Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco and Rufino Tamayo. His art directly reflected the time period in which he flourished as an artist. In order to fully grasp the meanings of his art, one would have to be fully aware of the history of Mexico. The peak of Siqueiros' career as an artist occurred during the Mexican Revolution. A period in Mexican history in which much violence, confusion, and chaos took place. David Alfaro Siqueiros' art was deeply rooted in the Mexican Revolution.
In studying the many periods in Siqueiros' life, one may get the impression that he has lived at least three different lives. This is said because of his political involvement. His life was filled with excessive amounts of travels, civil-responsibilities, events, and monumental works.
Political consideration was an important piece of Siqueiros' life. In fact in 1911, when he was only fifteen years old, Siqueiros attended the Academy of San Carlos and was greatly involved in a student strike. This was a protest against the academy's method of teaching and the impeachment of the school's director. One year later when he was just sixteen years old he conspired against Porfirio Díaz's dictatorship. Two years later, at the age of eighteen, he participated in the Constitutionalist Army fighting against the forces of general Victoriano Huerta. He was a very outgoing and revolutionary person, who diplayed excessive amounts of courage and talent. He was exiled twice from Mexico because of his political activism, once in 1932 and again in 1940.
From 1919 to 1933 he traveled to Belgium, France, Italy, and Spain to study art. The period from 1920-c.1950 is known as the Mexican Renaissance. Art after the Mexican Revolution was greatly influenced by the sociopolitical ideas of the Revolution, and a sense of national identity. Many artists drew from their roots, studying pre-Columbian arts.
David Alfaro Siqueiros was involved in muralist paintings in the United States. The most powerful and colorful mural in the U.S. came from the hands of three prolific artists. Siqueiros' hands were one set of them.