David Alfaro Siqueiros

(Mexican, 1896–1974)

David Alfaro Siqueiros was a Mexican painter best known for his involvement in the Mexican Muralism movement, along with Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco. The artist’s style merged the aesthetics of socialist realism, pre-Columbian art, Cubist handling of forms, and surreal imagery to create compelling and often politically-charged content. For example, in the print Heroic Voice (1971), the artist depicted a statesman surrounded by socialist imagery representative of the struggle of the proletariat. Born on December 29, 1896 in Chihuahua City, Mexico, he studied at the Academy of San Carlos in Mexico City. He later withdrew from the school and joined Venustiano Carranza’s Constitutional Army, which was fighting to take down the military government of Victoriano Huerta. Shortly thereafter, Siqueiros moved to Paris where he met Diego Rivera and came under the influence of artists like Paul Cézanne and Pablo Picasso. He then returned to Mexico City and worked as a muralist for Álvaro Obregón’s revolutionary government, during which time he joined the Syndicate of Revolutionary Mexican Painters, Sculptors, and Engravers in support of the recent revolution. At the end of his life, Siqueiros participated in the Venice Biennale and painted a number of public murals. The artist died on January 6, 1974 in Cuernavaca, Mexico. Today, his works are held in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and the Tate Gallery in London, among others.