page_title: Maxine Albro
section_title: Style
hierarchical_section_title: Maxine Albro / Style
caption_attribution_description: English: Mexico by Maxine Albro Artist: Maxine Albro, Date: ca. 1930–1933, Century: 20th Century AD, Media: Lithograph, Dimensions: 36.1 x 30.6 cm (image); 50.7 x 39 cm (sheet), Collection: Achenbach Foundation, Object Type: Print, Country: United States, Accession Number: 54140, Acquisition Date: 1933-03-10, Credit Line: Gift of Miss Maxine Albro Head and shoulders of smiling Mexican woman balancing large flat basket of bananas, pineapples, and one other; sleeping child’s head can be seen on her back.
context_page_description: Maxine Albro was an American painter, muralist, lithographer, mosaic artist, and sculptor. She was one of America's leading female artists, and one of the few women commissioned under the New Deal's Federal Art Project, which also employed Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, and Willem de Kooning.
context_section_description: Albro's artistic style is described as "clean, bright and clear with the strong rounded forms of this era, often depicting the women of Mexico, in particular those of the Tehuantepec region in Oaxaca."
  Her mural titled California at San Francisco's Coit Tower, which depicts the bounty of California's agricultural industry, was produced under the Works Progress Administration program.
  In 1934, the Literary Digest wrote about Albro's California, comparing it to the other murals painted inside Coit Tower:
  Richest and most vivid is the wall painted by Maxine Albro, reflecting the sunny, abundant fields of California, and their prodigal flow of fruit and grain.
  Two years earlier, following a successful Albro exhibition in San Francisco, art critic Junius Cravens wrote in the Argonaut:
  In a general way, Maxine Albro's works might be said to be in the contemporary Mexican mode. This impression, however, we feel, is largely due to their subject matter. Her work strikes us as being too essentially refined, and, at times, almost 'pretty' to entirely belong to the so-called Mexican School.
  It might rather be said to be a sweetened compromise between the modern Mexican School and that of some of the more native Mexican painters of a past era. For some reason any decorative painting or drawing of a Mexican subject that is done these days is at once credited with the Rivera influence. With the possible exception of one canvas, 'First Communion,' we fail to discover any marked Rivera influence in Albro's work ... because she has so successfully avoided imitating his technique.
  
  Albro's works are nicely rendered, pleasing and should have considerable popular appeal.
  Outside of artwork commissioned for public buildings, Albro painted frescoes for many private homes.
caption: Mexico (lithograph), Maxine Albro, 1933, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
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