Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Vida y Drama
Vida y Drama: Modern Mexican Prints, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, May 30 - November 2, 2009
Vida y Drama at the MFA Boston examines two waves Mexican graphic art. The giants of Mexican mural painting, Orozco, Rivera, Siquieros, and Tamayo, lead the first efforts, which inspired artists associated with the Taller de Gráfica Popular (People's Graphic Workshop). In some ways the younger artists proved more faithful to the art of printmaking and exploited it more thoroughly as an expressive tool, particularly Alberto Beltrán, whose exhibition poster for the TGP lends the MFA show its name, and the delightful Leopoldo Méndez, to whom contemporary Pop Surrealists owe an unpayable debt of gratitude.
The exhibition highlights the degree to which Mexico was keeping its eye on both current events and artistic developments around the world. Méndez's linocut (not pictured) of Nazis loading Jews into boxcars is one of the first depictions of the Holocaust, and it wouldn't look out of place next to a contemporaneous German woodblock print. At the same time, some of the most touching work in the show is portraiture. Siquieros produced a haunting reclining nude whose features could have been carved with stone tools. For all the swagger attributed to Rivera, he drew an astute self-portrait, succumbing to middle age, appreciating his classical roots, and evincing humility.
Diego Rivera (Mexican, 1886-1957), Zapata, 1932, lithograph, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Gift of W. G. Russell Allen, © 2009 Banco de Mexico Diego Rivera & Frida Kahlo Museums Trust, Mexico, D.F. / Artists Rights Society, New York, photograph courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Alberto Beltrán (Mexican, 1923-2002), Vida y Drama de Mexico, 1957, black ink and opaque watercolor over graphite on architectural blueprint paper, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. George Peabody Gardner Fund, photograph courtesy, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Diego Rivera, Self-Portrait, 1930, lithograph, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Gift of W. G. Russell Allen, © 2009 Banco de Mexico Diego Rivera & Frida Kahlo Museums Trust, Mexico, D.F. / Artists Rights Society, New York, photograph courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Angel Bracho (Mexican, born in 1911), Victoria!, 1945, color woodcut, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Museum purchase with funds donated by Richard Wallace, photograph © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Rufino Tamayo (Mexican (active in the United States), 1899-1991), Virgin of Guadalupe, 1926-1927, woodcut, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Eleanor A. Sayre Prints, Drawings, and Rare Books Fund, © Estate of Rufino Tamayo, photograph courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Francisco Dosamantes (Mexican, 1911-1986), Taller de Gráfica Popular: Exposición 20 Litografías, Galería de Arte de la Universidad Nacional, 1939, color lithograph, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Gift of Roger Genser, photograph © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
José Clemente Orozco (Mexican, 1883-1949): The Masses, 1935, lithograph, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Gift of L. Aaron Lebowich, photograph courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Diego Rivera, La Mujer (Frida Kahlo), verso, 1930, lithographic montage (unique); verso: lithograph, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Katherine E. Bullard Fund in memory of Francis Bullard, photograph courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Diego Rivera, La Mujer (Frida Kahlo), recto, 1930, lithographic montage (unique); verso: lithograph, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Katherine E. Bullard Fund in memory of Francis Bullard, © 2009 Banco de Mexico Diego Rivera & Frida Kahlo Museums Trust, Mexico, D.F. / Artists Rights Society, New York, photograph courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston