Zapata David Alfaro Siqueiros 1930

Zapata
David Alfaro Siqueiros 1930
From the collection of
Inter-American Development Bank
David Alfaro Siqueiros was very active in the organizing of Mexico’s labor forces, and his political activism resulted in many deportations and years in jail. It was in jail where he created most of his easel works. He incorporated many new materials and techniques, and was the first artist to use acrylics as a painting media. The distinctive “Siqueiros three-dimensional” perspective is unmistakable. This well known lithograph pays homage to one of the quintessential symbols of the Mexican Revolution, Emiliano Zapata, who came to personify the ideals of social inclusion and economic equity among the less privileged.
Details
Title: Zapata
Creator: David Alfaro Siqueiros
Date Created: 1930
Location: Mexico
Physical Dimensions: w22.88 x h28.75 in
Class: 2-dimensional
Type: lithograph
Rights: All rights reserved
Medium: lithograph, 7/35

Inter-American Development Bank
Washington, United States

Here at the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), we work to improve lives in Latin America and the Caribbean. Through financial and technical support for countries working to reduce poverty and inequality, we help improve health and education, and advance infrastructure. Our aim is to achieve development in a sustainable, climate-friendly way. With a history dating back to 1959, we are today the leading source of development financing for Latin America and the Caribbean.

The IDB Art Collection was established in 1992 and houses close to 2,000 objects, predominately from Latin American and the Caribbean. As the stewards of this collection, the IDB Cultural Center seeks to enhance society’s understanding of the role of creativity in development work by promoting the virtues of the creative industries – those endeavors that lie at the crossroads of art, design, culture, business, and technology.

For more information about the cultural and creative industries, please visit www.iadb.org/creativity.

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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/print/zapata-david-alfaro-siqueiros-1930/