Self-portrait [The Great Colonel]
David Alfaro Siqueiros 1945
From the collection of
Museo Nacional de Arte
It is common knowledge that, throughout his career, Siqueiros never ceased to search for new techniques and modes of expression, whether in the form of mural painting or of easel works, which latter he never completely abandoned, despite his expressions of disdain for them. As part of this endeavor, he executed numerous self-portraits, clearly undertaken not out of- self-obsession, but rather as part of his overall artistic practice. Siqueiros based the present work on a photograph of himself, in a similar pose, taken, at a time when he was using any and all resources, including movies and photographs, in order to capture movement, on the terrace of the Fine Arts Palace, where he was painting the murals entitled New Democracy, The Victory of Fascism and War Victims, executed between 1944 and 1945, after returning from a trip to Cuba and Chile, where he had spent a period painting murals. The Great Colonel-whose title is taken from that adopted by the artist while fighting as a colonel in the Spanish Civil War- is, without a doubt, one of the works most characteristic not only of its creator, but also of XXth-century Mexican art. In the foreground, we see the clenched fist of the subject's right hand, defying the spectator and culminating in a vanishing point near his coarsely depicted face. Pyroxylin and modern synthetic adhesives provided the artist with new means of expression, not only in murals, but also in easel works, and, here, he uses these developments to impart a three-dimensional quality to his work, juxtaposing thick impasto-laden brushstrokes, made possible by the ductile quality of his materials, to achieve sculpture-like volume. This work passed to the MUNAL from the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in 1982, to form part of the former's founding endowment.
Details
Title: Self-portrait [The Great Colonel]
Date Created: 1945
painter: David Alfaro Siqueiros
Provenance: Museum of Modern Art in 1982
Physical Dimensions: w1216 x h915 mm (complete)
Original Spanish object note: Es de todos conocido el afán de las búsquedas técnicas y expresivas por parte de Alfaro Siqueiros durante toda su carrera, ya fuese en la pintura mural como en la de caballete, la cual, aunque desdeñó, no dejó de utilizar. Son numerosos los autorretratos que llevó a cabo, con la intención aparente de un ejercicio plástico más y no como un reflejo de su propio ego. Para la realización de la presente obra, Alfaro Siqueiros partió de una fotografía tomada en la terraza del Palacio de Bellas Artes, en la misma pose, en un momento en el que utilizó cuanto recurso le parecía relevante del cine y la fotografía con el fin de captar el movimiento. Cabe mencionar que en aquel tiempo se encontraba en dicho recinto pintando los paneles Nueva democracia, Victoria del fascismo y Víctimas de la guerra, entre 1944 y 1945, tras dejar Cuba y Chile, donde pasó una temporada elaborando una serie de obras murales, y volver a México. El coronelazo es, sin duda, una de las obras más representativas del autor y de la iconografía del arte mexicano del siglo XX. El título proviene del sobrenombre que adoptó a raíz de su participación en la guerra civil española (1936-1939), donde ostentó el grado de coronel. En él vemos en primer plano el puño cerrado de la mano derecha en alto, desafiando al espectador y produciendo un punto de fuga hacia su tosco rostro. Se trata de una representación pictórica de cualidades tridimensionales. La piroxilina y los aglutinantes sintéticos modernos le ofrecieron nuevas posibilidades de expresión, tanto en los murales como en la obra de caballete. La ductilidad de los materiales le permitió marcar brochazos empastados yuxtapuestos para lograr los volúmenes escultóricos. La obra procedente del fondo del Museo de Arte Moderno, ingresó al MUNAL como parte de su acervo constitutivo en 1982.
Original title: Autorretrato [El coronelazo]
Type: Painting
Rights: Museo Nacional de Arte, INBA, http://www.munal.com.mx/rights.html
Medium: Pyroxylin on celotex

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/4340/