Mexican Muralists: Orozco, Rivera, Siqueiros
by Desmond Rochfort
Category: Art

The Mexican Mural movement lasted from the 1920s until the early 1970s and represented one of the most powerful and significant achievements for public art this century. This book follows the careers of the three most prominent artists of the movement, 'los tres Grandes' - Jose Clemente Orozco, Diego Rivera and David Alfaro Siqueiros. Dr Rochfort traces their lives from childhood in a rural, feudal society through the bloody years of the revolution and the first commissions from the new state, and on to the years of their artistic maturity and their greatest works. The first study to offer comprehensive color illustrations of all the major murals, both those sited in Mexico and in the United States, where all three artists worked in the 1930s, it also looks at the paintings in the context of their cultural background and assesses the artists' achievements within the political framework of their country. The story is an extraordinary and moving one, telling of the forging of a national identity through an unprecedented marriage between politics and art. Dr Rochfort has written a lively, accessible text which presents a complex period of art history clearly and well, while the illustrations ensure that the sheer scale of the works is never forgotten.