David Alfaro Siqueiros

David Alfaro Siqueiros was one of the main representatives of Muralismo and belonged to the so-called “Los Tres Grandes” (“The Big Three”), along with José Orozco and Diego Rivera (1886-1957).

Siqueiros first began his artistic training in 1911 at the Academia de San Carlos in Mexico City and attended the Santa Anita School of Open Air Painting. In the Civil War of the Mexican Revolution, he fought in the Revolutionary Army of the Constitutionalists from 1914 and later as an officer of the General Staff of President Venustiano Carranza (1859-1920). In 1918 he was sent to Europe as a military attaché. In Paris, he met Diego Rivera and traveled with him through Italy. Together they developed the basic ideas of Muralism, a school of mural painting that would combine indigenous Mexican and European traditions. Both in his work and in his writings, he strove for social realism.

Upon his return to Mexico in 1922, Siqueiros and other muralists received their first commissions to paint wall areas in public spaces. In 1923, he painted his famous and colossal mural “Burial of the Sacrificed Worker” in the stairwell of the Colegio Chico de San Ildefonso. In 1924, he co-founded the newspaper _El Machete__, the official publication of the Union of Workers, Technicians, Painters, and Writers. In the early 1930s, Siqueiros was imprisoned for a year for the first time for political reasons. From 1932-33, he taught as a professor at the Chouinard School of Art in Los Angeles. During this time, he also produced a series of lithographs. From 1933 to 1938 he was a founding member of the Liga de Escritores y Artistas Revolucionarios (League of Revolutionary Writers and Artists). He was also a member of the Taller de Gráfica Popular (Workshop of Popular Printmakers) from 1937.

Like Rivera, Siqueiros was a convinced communist and revolutionary throughout his life. Many of his paintings are a committed testimony against oppression and exploitation and glorify the Mexican Revolution. In 1936-39 he fought as a volunteer in the Spanish Civil War. A staunch Stalinist, in 1940 he led a conspiracy to assassinate Leon Trotsky, who was living in exile in Mexico. Trotsky survived the raid on his home and escaped machine-gun blasts by hiding under his bed but was assassinated by an agent just three months later. Siqueiros spent several months in prison for the assassination and was then expelled for several years. Thus, in 1941 he worked in Chile in the city of Chillán. His murals there were donated by Mexico after the 1939 earthquake, which claimed 30,000 victims. He then emigrated to Cuba. However, he continued to receive commissions for public buildings in Mexico after his return in 1946 until his death, such as the Castillo de Chapultepec, the former presidential palace, and the Palacio de Bellas Artes.

In 1966 Siqueiros received the Lenin Peace Prize and in the same year the National Fine Arts Award of Mexico. His wife Angélica (1909-1989) was the sister of muralist Luis Arenal Bastar (1908 or 1909-1985).