David Alfaro Siqueiros (1896 - 1974) was a Mexican painter and one of the founders of the Mexican Mural Movement, one of the "Big Three", with Jose Clemente Orosco and Diego Rivera. He was also a Communist, life-long political activist, veteran of the Mexican Revolution and Spanish Civil War, sometime political prisoner, outspoken polemicist and would-be assassin. Throughout his life, he espoused the ideal that art, by its nature, had to be political in order to carry any substance, decrying the art of capitalist Europe and the United States. Siqueiros went, perhaps, the furthest of all the muralists in his attempts to combine his political views and aesthetic ideals with modern technical means to create a truly "public art".
1918. Watercolor and crayon. 58 x 46 cm. Private collection.
1918. Oil on burlap. 86 x 58 cm. Private collection.
1919. Watercolor. An Art Nouveau illustration published in the newspaper "", January 24, 1919.
1920. Oil on canvas. 127 x 91 cm. Patrimony of Jalisco, Guadalahara, Mexico.
1922. Ceiling over stairway.Encaustic. National Preparatory School, Mexico, Mexico.
1929. Oil on burlap. 249 x 180 cm. Museum of Modern Art, Mexico, Mexico.
1929. Oil on burlap. 249 x 180 cm. Museum of Modern Art, Mexico, Mexico.
1930. Oil on burlap. Mexican Revolution threatened as seen in the distorted faces of Zapata and Toledano. The arm of the Revolution sinks in the shark-infested waters.
1931. Oil on burlap. 96 x 74 cm. Private collection.
1931. Oil on canvas. 79 x 63 cm.
1932. Pencil and india ink. 28 x 21 cm. Private collection.
1932. Reconstructed rendering. Cement fresco mural (obliterated with white wash). Olivera Street, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
1932. Detail. Cement fresco mural (obliterated with white wash). Olivera Street, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
1932. Mural in fresco. Private collection.
1936. Pyroxylin. 76 x 61 cm. The Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, CA, USA.
1936. Pyroxylin on Masonite. 75 x 60 cm. Sala de Arte Publico Siqueiros, Mexico, Mexico.
1936. Pyroxylin on Masonite. 77 x 61 cm. Private collection.
1936. Oil on canvas. 254 x 161 cm. Private collection.
1937. Pyroxylin. 125 x 90 cm. The Museum of Modern Arts, New York, NY, USA.
1939. Pyroxylin. 122 x 61 cm. The Museum of Modern Arts, New York, NY, USA.
Me Llamaban El Coronelazo (Меня называли лихим полковником) by David Alfaro Siqueiros. Moscow, 1980.
Mexican Muralists: Orozco, Rivera, Siqueiros by Desmond Rochfort. Chronicle Books, 1998.
Siqueiros: His Life and Works by Philip Stein. International Publishers, 1994.