Mining Accident David Alfaro Siqueiros 1931

Mining Accident
David Alfaro Siqueiros 1931
From the collection of
Museo Nacional de Arte
Based on his extensive experience as a union organizer in Guadalajara, David Alfaro Siqueiros decided to produce a visual record of working- class conditions. Here, in the same monumental style that distinguishes his mural, The Laborer's Burial, executed in the Small Courtyard of the National Preparatory School in the early nineteen twenties, the artist depicts a fallen worker, motionless and with a deathly face, buried in rubble. In a gesture of solidarity, the mans companions are removing fallen blocks of stone in what may be a reference to the mining accidents that were common in Mexico's Taxco region. This large-scale work has a mournfulness about it that puts one in mind of a funeral cortege. The foreshortened heads and shoulders and elongated arms of the miners stand out and confer a sinuous harmony on the composition, while the strip of red cloth in the bottom left-hand corner may well be suggestive of the red flag of socialism. This painting is closely linked to the 1933 watercolor of the same name, which is also part of the MUNALs collection. This work entered the MUNAL as part of its founding endowment in 1982.
Details
Title: Mining Accident
Date Created: 1931
painter: David Alfaro Siqueiros
Provenance: Constituve Collection
Physical Dimensions: w2200 x h1350 mm (complete)
Original Spanish object note: Después de una amplia experiencia con la organización sindical en Guadalajara, David Alfaro Siqueiros decidió dejar una constancia visual de las condiciones de la clase trabajadora. Con el carácter monumental que identificó su trabajo mural El entierro del obrero, en el Patio Chico de la Escuela Nacional Preparatoria de los tempranos años veinte, el artista representa aquí al trabajador caído y sepultado entre los escombros, el cual yace inmóvil y tiene el rostro exangüe. Sus compañeros, en forma solidaria, apartan los enormes bloques de piedra, hecho que puede tener resonancia con los percances mineros en la región de Taxco. Esta obra de gran formato detenta un significado luctuoso y tal parece apelar al ritual de un cortejo fúnebre. Los escorzos de las extremidades superiores de los mineros así como sus largos brazos sobresalen y confieren un juego de formas sinuosas a la composición. El pedazo de tela roja localizado en el extremo izquierdo inferior del lienzo deja entrever una metáfora política, ya que quizá remita a una bandera, elemento simbólico de identidad, unión, lucha y soberanía. Esta pintura se relaciona estrechamente con la acuarela del mismo nombre fechada en 1933, que también pertenece al acervo del Museo Nacional de Arte. La obra ingresó al MUNAL como parte de su acervo constitutivo en 1982.
Original title: Accidente en la mina
Type: Painting
Rights: Museo Nacional de Arte, INBA, http://www.munal.com.mx/rights.html
Medium: Oil on jute-ixtle fiber

David Alfaro Siqueiros
Dec 29, 1896 - Jan 6, 1974

David Alfaro Siqueiros was a Mexican social realist painter, better known for his large murals in fresco. Along with Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco, he established "Mexican Muralism." He was a Stalinist and member of the Mexican Communist Party who participated in an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate Leon Trotsky in May 1940.
His surname would normally be Alfaro by Spanish naming customs; like Picasso and Lorca, Siqueiros used his mother's surname. It was long believed that he was born in Camargo in Chihuahua state, but in 2003 it was proven that he had actually been born in the city of Chihuahua, but grew up in Irapuato, Guanajuato, at least from the age of six. The discovery of his birth certificate in 2003 by a Mexican art curator was announced the following year by art critic Raquel Tibol, who was renowned as the leading authority on Mexican Muralism and who had been a close acquaintance of Siqueiros. Siqueiros changed his given name to "David" after his first wife called him by it in allusion to Michelangelo's David. Another factual confusion is the year of his birth: he was born in 1896, but many sources state 1898 or 1899
http://hisour.com/art-medium/paintings/mining-accident-david-alfaro-siqueiros-1931/