Mexican Modernism

BY: Howard Karren

The Mexican Revolution began in 1910 and lasted for most of the decade. More than a million people lost their lives, and the country was transformed, forcing electoral, land and labor reforms and the establishment of a new constitution in 1917. Artists were naturally inspired by the ideals of the Revolution, and a unique form of Mexican modernism blossomed, distilling the styles of avant-garde movements in 20th-century European art with folkloric and native traditions. Some world renowned talents rose to prominence over the next 40 years—Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, José Clemente Orozco, David Alfaro Siqueiros and Rufino Tamayo—and there was growing recognition in the United States and around the globe of Mexico’s cultural importance.

Now the Philadelphia Museum of Art, which has one of the finest collections of Mexican art in the U.S., in partnership with the Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City, has launched a landmark exhibition that exploring this extraordinary moment in the history of Mexican art. “Paint the Revolution: Mexican Modernism, 1910–1950,” running through January 8, is the most comprehensive show of Mexican modernism in the United States in more than 70 years and features a wide range of murals, paintings, prints, photographs, books and broadsheets. Here is a PROVOKR portfolio of some of the extraordinary works in the exhibit.