Lecture 13: Mexican Modernism and U.S. Regionalism

Diego Rivera, History of Mexico: National Palace, Mexico City. 1929

A staunch Marxist, this artist painted vast mural cycles in public buildings to dramatize the history of his native land. This fresco depicts the conflicts between indigenous Mexicans and Spanish Colonizers.

Regionalism

An American realist modern art movement that was popular from 1920s through the 1950s in the United States. The artistic focus was from artists who shunned city life, and rapidly developing technological advances, to create scenes of rural life.

José Clemente Orozco, Epic of American Civilization, Dartmouth College: Hanover, New Hampshire. 1932-34

One of 24 panels depicting the history of Mexico from ancient times, this scene focuses on a heroic peasant soldier of the Mexican Revolution surrounded by symbolic figures of his oppressors.

Jacob Lawrence, The Migration of the Negro. 1940-41

The 49th in a series of 60 paintings documenting African American life in the North. This artists depiction of a segregated dining room underscored that the migrants had not left discrimination behind.

Edward Hopper, Nighthawks. 1942

The seeming indifference of this artists characters to one another, and the echoing spaces surrounding them, evoke the overwhelming loneliness and isolation of Depression-era life in the U.S.

Frida Kahlo, The Two Fridas. 1939

This artists deeply personal paintings touch sensual and psychological memories in her audience. Here, twin self-portraits linked by clasped hands and a common artery suggest two sides of her personality.

Dorothea Lange, Migrant Mother: Nipomo Valley. 1935

While documenting the lives of migratory farm workers during the Depression, this artist made this unforgettable photograph of a mother in which she captured the woman's strength and worry.

Mexican Muralism

headed by "the big three" painters, Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiros in 1920s to 1970s a large number of murals with nationalistic, social and political messages were created on public buildings

David Alfaro Siqueiros, Proletarian Mother. 1931

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Thomas Hart Benton, America Today. 1930-31

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Federal Art Project

new deal program that funded large murals; division of the works progress administration that hired unemployed artists to create artwork for public buildings and sponsored art-education programs and exhibitions