During the 1920s and 1930s the United States art world became enamored with the murals that the tres grandes (Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, and David Alfaro Siqueiros) painted on the walls of Mexico’s public buildings. Given that murals painted on public walls were immobile and few undertook travel to Mexico to see them, how did the US public engage with a body of work they could not see? And how did their manner of engaging muralism alter the kind of art the tres grandes produced in their pursuit of transnational fame and fortune? Anna Indych-López leads us into the Mexican and US art worlds and exhibition cultures to reveal unexpected answers.
The author pays particular attention to Orozco, because he most successfully modified his art to meet the expectations of the US art market. During the revolution Mexican photographers and buyers were drawn to scenes that lent coherence to...
