Transcript
Page 1: The Siqueiros Experimental Workshop: New York, 1936

The Siqueiros Experimental Workshop: New York, 1936Author(s): Laurance P. HurlburtSource: Art Journal, Vol. 35, No. 3 (Spring, 1976), pp. 237-246Published by: College Art AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/775942 .

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Page 2: The Siqueiros Experimental Workshop: New York, 1936

The Siqueiros Experimental Workshop: New York, 1936

LAURANCE P. HURLBURT

Fig. 1. David Alfaro Siqueiros, Tropical America, 17 x 80', Los Angeles, 1932. Photo from Siqueiros archives.

The muralistic development of Siqueiros during the 1930s has been scarcely touched by scholarly investigation.1 I wish to examine in detail an important aspect of Siqueiros' artistic

experimentation of the 1930s-his New York "Experimental Workshop" of 1936, which was an important step along the way toward the culminating work of this period, the Electri- cians' Union mural (Mexico, D.F.) of 1939-40. In addition to the importance of the technical experimentation of Siquei- ros' Workshop, my study will consider the Workshop's in- tense political commitment, so characteristic of the political involvement of the artist during the New Deal period.2

The Experimental Workshop was a continuation of Siquei- ros' technical investigation of the '30s, which had the aim of

creating a viable 20th-century revolutionary art form. Prior

experiences had been the murals of the Los Angeles period (Fig. 1),3 the mural Plastic Exercise (Argentina, 1933), and his at times violent, running controversy on the problem of

contemporary revolutionary art with Diego Rivera during 1934-35. At least a cursory examination of the 1933-35 period is necessary to place the activities of the New York Workshop into a more comprehensible context.

After his deportation for political reasons from the United States in late 1932, Siqueiros-unable to return to Mexico because of the persecution of Mexican Communist Party members by the Calles-controlled administrations of the early 1930s-spent 1933 in Argentina and Uruguay. There, in a characteristic burst of artistic activity, Siqueiros lectured, had five one-man exhibitions of his work in Montevideo and Buenos Aires,4 and painted an important experimental mural.

This mural, covering some 200 square meters and entitled Plastic Exercise, was painted in the cylindrically shaped bar of the Don Torcuato country house of the newspaper publisher Natalio Botana (Crftica, Buenos Aires). The work extended much of the technological experimentation of the Los Ange- les murals. Firstly, a five-man painting team (composed of

Argentinian and Uruguayan artists), led by Siqueiros, used mechanical elements-such as spray guns, drills, cement

applicators-exclusively on the mural. Both still and movie cameras were used to check the mural's preliminary compo- sition and for the necessary final readjustments. Colored mortar cement was applied to the floor and painted, and the entire effect of the mural was heightened by artificial light- ing. Finally, Siqueiros used silicate to retouch the "cement- fresco,"5 which was painted with nitrocellulose pigments (at this time used primarily in the automotive industry).

A highly unexpected aspect of the mural (Figs. 2, 3) is that it is completely devoid of any social and/or political commen-

tary; it was, in Siqueiros' words, a "fundamentally optical" experiment. Siqueiros saw the work only as an "initial contri- bution to revolutionary form," the "embryonic realization" of an art designed for the masses of the 20th century that would combine not only revolutionary content but also revo-

lutionary form. Extant photographs (unfortunately few in number and of poor quality) give only a tentative impression of the mural. One forcefully encounters-rather than pas- sively sees-gigantic female nudes and strange monster- types in severely distorted postures. Siqueiros evidently had nudes pose on plate glass and photographed them in various

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Page 3: The Siqueiros Experimental Workshop: New York, 1936

Fig. 2 and 3. Plastic Exercise, Don Torcuato, Argen- tina, 1933. Photo from Critica (Buenos Aires), 11-12- 1933.

positions from different angles, and the results were.then projected onto the walls of the room.6

Fully as important as the technical experimentation was the dramatic innovation concerning Siqueiros' conceptual ap- proach to the architectural environment of the mural. In an analysis of the room's geometrical structure, a "plastic box," to use Siqueiros' term, was created in which the entire archi- tectural space was considered to be artistically vital. Further, the logical progression of the spectator was the element used to determine the flow of the mural's composition. In this manner, one's viewing (or perhaps better, experiencing) of the mural was determined by his natural movement through the space of the mural's architectural environment. As Si- queiros said, in Plastic Exercise he was involved with the creation of active space, a "monumental dynamic ... poly- faceted ... in living action." Thus, there appeared for the first time in Siqueiros' work-however technically undevel- oped and artistically unsuccessful-the creation of a dynami- cally active mural composition in which the natural path of the spectator through the mural's environment "triggers" different points of view within the mural.

After his expulsion from Argentina in late 1933 (again for leftist political activity), Siqueiros came to New York. In an interview shortly after his arrival (Art Digest, Feb. 1, 1934) he talked of team painting, the use of still and movie cameras to plan mural composition, and professed the desire to paint a "series of murals, preferably exterior," during his stay in New York. Although this venture did not materialize, Siqueiros did have his first New York exhibition in March 1934 at Alma Reed's Delphic Studios, in which he showed photos of his Mexican and California murals and easel paintings.

The final event of note from this period was the publication of Siqueiros' onslaught on Diego Rivera, "Rivera's Counter- Revolutionary Road" (New Masses, May 29, 1934), which escalated the Siqueiros-Rivera controversy over the role of 20th-century muralism, Siqueiros advocating the rejection of the "archeological" point of view of Rivera and his followers and the adoption instead of the tools of modern industry as a more suitable technical base for the social function of con- temporary muralism. Siqueiros' harangue (ostensibly a criti- cism of the Rivera-Bertram Wolfe collaboration, Portrait of America, of 1934), in which Rivera was portrayed as a "mental snob," "saboteur of collective work," "official painter of the new bourgeoisie," and the like, was no doubt ultimately based on Rivera's expulsion from the Mexican Communist Party in 1929 and his subsequent support of Trotsky.7 The Siqueiros-Rivera "debates" on this matter-which generated much publicity, if they were lacking in substance-took place in Mexico, D.F., in August 1935.8 For a few days Siqueiros and Rivera traded denunciatory attacks and inflammatory rhetoric amidst the totally innocent trappings of the meetings held by the North American Conference of New Education Fellow- ship. The tempest soon subsided, and finally sputtered out with a signing of several "confessions" by Rivera in October 1935.

Siqueiros arrived in New York in mid-February of 1936 as one of the official Mexican delegates to the American Artists Congress (see Fig. 4 of delegation members at Alma Reed's apartment; from left to right, Rufino and Olga Tamayo, Si- queiros, Orozco, Roberto Berdecio, and Angelica Arenal de Siqueiros).9 This period, as in the case of Los Angeles (1932) and Argentina (1933), was marked by another furious burst of artistic activity. Within two weeks Siqueiros had succeeded in organizing an "initial nucleus" of artists (Har- old Lehman, Sande McCoy, Jackson Pollock, Axel Horr, George Cox, Louis Ferstadt, Clara Mahl, Luis Arenal, Antonio Pujol, Conrado Vasquez, Jose Gutierrez, and Roberto Berde- cio) "ready to raise the standard of a true revolutionary art program," and the Siqueiros Experimental Workshop ("A Laboratory of Modern Techniques in Art") opened in April 1936 at 5 West 14 Street (Fig. 5, the Workshop with Siqueiros surrounded by his followers).10

The activities of the Workshop, organized as a collective enterprise,1 were succinctly described in a contemporary article by Harold Lehman:

Two main points were embodied in the Workshop plan: the Workshop should (1) be a laboratory for experiment in modern art techniques; (2) create art for the people. Under the first heading came experiment with regard to tools, materials, aes- thetic or artistic approach, and methods of working collectively; under the second point came a utilization of media extending

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Fig. 4. Mexican delegates to American Artists Congress, New York, 1936. From left to right: Rufino and Olga Tamayo, Siqueiros, Orozco, Roberto Berdecio, and Angelica Arenal de Siqueiros. Photo: courtesy of Roberto Berdecio.

Fig. 5. Siqueiros Experimental Workshop, New York, 1936.

from the simple direct statement of the poster, whose service is

fleeting, to the complex statement of the relatively permanent mural.12

It is possible, then, to divide the artistic production of the

Workshop into distinct categories. One-"art for the peo- ple"-was the creation of temporary art works (floats, pos- ters) for specific political events of that year: May Day, the CPUSA convention, various anti-fascist rallies, etc. A second group of works was the experimental easel paintings pro- duced by Siqueiros, often with the collaboration of other

Workshop members. Finally, and least important artistically, were the private easel paintings done by Siqueiros to obtain funds for Workshop activities.13 The most intensive periods of production seem to have involved the political works:

It is necessary to remember-the Workshop operated in spurts. Short bursts of activity (for parades, demonstrations, un- ions, etc.) would be followed by periods of relative quiet during

which S. would develop his own personal work. And there was a lot of it. He was always working. At such times people would drift off and only the central core would remain-the Mexicans, other Latins and a few, a very few, Americans.'4

The first important collective production of the Workshop was a float for the 1936 May Day celebrations (Figs. 6, 7):

This project crystallized practically all the outstanding ideas about which the shop had been organized. It was in the first place Art for the People, executed collectively; and into it went dynamic idea, new painting media, mechanical construction and mechani- cal movement, polychrome sculpture, and the use of new tools. Certainly a message in such striking form had never been brought forward in a May Day parade before.15

Described by Siqueiros as "an essay of polychromed monu- mental sculpture in motion," the imagery was clearly derived from a poster also produced at that time for the Farmer Labor Party. The basic graphic problem, as envisioned by Siqueiros, was to effectively depict the enormous political power of Wall Street, and the necessary progressive reaction of the people (i.e., the CPUSA and the Popular Front coalition, the Farmer Labor Party). The Workshop's embodiment of Wall Street capitalism shows the figure's head topped with a swas- tika and holding in his outstretched hands emblems of the Republican and Democratic parties (thus symbolizing Wall Street control over the U.S. political system). A gigantic moving hammer adorned with the Communist hammer and sickle, which represented the unity of the North American people, smashed into oblivion a Wall Street tickertape ma- chine, spewing the tape blood-like over the capitalist fig- ure.16

The next float-literally one in this case, as it was mounted on a boat-was produced for the American League Against War and Fascism for the demonstrations of "Anti-Hearst Day" (July 4, 1936). The float measured approximately 14 feet in height and 30 in length, and on it two figures, Hearst and Hitler, were seated back-to-back on a construction mounted atop a small boat. The heads revolved, creating two inter-

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Fig. 6. Experimental Workshop May Day 1936 float. Photo from Siqueiros archives.

changeable figures, which indicated the identical fascist posi- tions of Hearst and Hitler. The sides of the boat were covered with "bloody" (red paint) handprints, symbolizing the suffer-

ing of the people at the hands of fascism. The plan was for the float to pass in front of the masses enjoying the holiday at Coney Island, but due to interference by police authorities and choppy seas, this did not happen.17 Other public works of this nature were: two anti-war floats (again for the League Against War and Fascism) of August 1936, a 15-foot cut-out

figure for a Loyalist Spain rally in January 1937, and a float for May Day 1937.18 This last float (Fig. 8) was evidently the only one to be published (Art Front, June-July 1937); it shows an enormous papier-mrche worker reading the Daily Worker, whose headline is "Workers Rally CIO Drive."

Another type of collectively executed political statement produced by the Workshop (and not mentioned in Lehman's Art Front article) were projects specifically commissioned by the CPUSA. The most artistically interesting of these were the gigantic painted photo-enlargements, some 15 feet high, of the CPUSA 1936 presidential candidates, Earl Browder and James Ford (Figs. 9, 10), designed to be exhibited at the Party's convention. These paintings were a collaborative ef- fort of Siqueiros and Lehman:

The original paintings were done from actual photos of Brow- der and Ford. They were done on masonite panels with lacquers, and were about 4 or 5 feet high. I did the Browder and Siqueiros did the Ford. Photos were then taken of these panels by Peter Juley.... Next we projected the 8 x 10 prints directly onto the prepared full-size panels-to establish the drawing and to block out the light and dark areas.19

In an attempt to heighten the realistic effect of the photo- graphic portraits, the blown-up photographic images were painted with nitrocellulose pigments. This procedure was a

Fig. 7. Jackson Pollock working on May Day 1936 float. Photo from Siquei- ros archives.

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Page 6: The Siqueiros Experimental Workshop: New York, 1936

w-?:^t ;~~~? '

Fig. 8. Experimental Workshop May Day 1937 float. Photo from Daily World archives.

Fig. 9. Earl Browder, poster painting, 1936. Photo from Si- queiros archives.

Fig. 10. James Ford, poster painting, 1936. Photo from Si- queiros archives.

direct carry over from Workshop technical experimentation, in which sections of easel paintings executed by Siqueiros and others would be photographically enlarged and poly- chromed, using nitrocellulose pigments applied with the airbrush. The treatment of Ford's hair, which has been heav-

ily incrusted with pigment (i.e., taking advantage of the

strong modeling qualities of the nitrocellulose pigments), is the most obvious use of Siqueiros' new techniques. These portraits combined the most basic of the Workshop's aims: the use of multi-reproducible, mechanical and/or industrial elements-the photograph, spray gun, and nitrocellulose paint, all for the purpose of creating an art form that would synthesize a realistic style with overt contemporary political content.

No doubt Siqueiros considered the production of political floats, posters, etc., "Art for the People, executed collec-

tively," to have been highly significant Workshop activity; yet in terms of Siqueiros' future murals, by far the most histori-

cally important aspect of the Workshop was the experimental easel work. Axel Horn has described the freewheeling nature of this experimentation:

Spurred on by Siqueiros, whose energy and torrential flow of ideas and new projects stimulated us all to a high pitch of activity, everything became material for our investigation. For instance: lacquer opened up enormous possibilities in the application of color. We sprayed through stencils and friskets, embedded wood, metal, sand, and paper. We used it in thin glazes or built it up into thick gobs. We poured it, dripped it, splattered it, hurled it at the picture surface. It dried quickly, almost instantly, and

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Page 7: The Siqueiros Experimental Workshop: New York, 1936

could be removed at will even though thoroughly dry and hard. What emerged was an endless variety of accidental effects. Si- queiros soon constructed a theory and system of "controlled accidents."20

While Horn noted the "literary content" of the Workshop paintings, he unfortunately neglected to explain the very serious rationale for all this experimentation: Siqueiros be- lieved that the "fundamental problem of revolutionary art is a technical problem, a problem of mechanization, a physical problem in sum, tied to a problem of dialectical methodol-

ogy." That is, Siqueiros saw the importance of the Workshop as initiating a second period of 20th-century muralism, in which the adoption of modern industrial technology would supplant the "primitivism" of earlier mural efforts (e.g., his own work at the National Preparatory School, Mexico, D.F., 1922-24, and Rivera's work in general):

The Yankee artists, who during a long period reacted violently against me as a result of my controversy with Rivera, are begin- ning to understand clearly that my asseverations and experimen- tal practices are opening the door to a second period or grade of agitational or propaganda art, initiated (in an idealized manner) by us in Mexico.21

Yet, although he evidently did not reveal it to artists around him, Siqueiros suffered much disillusionment and dis- heartenment during the 1930s in his attempts to incorporate the use of modern industrial tools (especially the spray gun) into his art; as he wrote to Maria Asunsolo:

... I suffered many secret disillusions because of this fickle instrument (spray gun) invented by capitalist industry. Disillu- sions that frequently totally reduced me to a grave moral depres- sion in Los Angeles, in Argentina, and here recently. I knew that the modern machine had great force to be of extraordinary utility. But I could only present that truth; I had only fundamental premises and basic arguments for its defense, nothing more.22

It was only with the experimentation of the New York Work-

shop that he believed that he had begun to achieve a meas- ure of success in this area:

Now I well see my technical road as a revolutionary painter is in using a technique and a dialectic suited to its ideological and aesthetic end. If you could see how well I am able to think plastically on political problems! Before it was almost impossible for me. The emotional and sensual part of art dominated me entirely. A pleasant texture or a beautiful abstract form made me forget the initial proposition of my political thought and for this reason I didn't succeed. Now I have the energy to sacrifice those things in my painting that are not in concordance with my mental objective.23

An examination of three Workshop paintings discloses the specific nature of Siqueiros' politico-artistic experimentation. These works, I hasten to say, can hardly be considered for- mally or politically successful; rather these paintings were of basic importance in Siqueiros' subsequent development, as they were directly related to his first artistically mature mural, the Electricians' Union of 1939-40. The "first revelation" of the great artistic possibilities of the nitrocellulose pigments (first used by Siqueiros in Argentina, these pigments would be fundamental to his muralistic evolution)-the elasticity,

transparency, almost instantaneous drying, etc.-occurred in a series of small panel paintings which antedated the political works:

The absorption of the colors on the surface produced snails and conches of forms and sizes most unimaginable with the most fantastic details possible. But that accidental phenomenon could have plastic value only in the means in which we could coordi- nate, direct, and utilize it; that is, what we made using such a premise.24

The first attempt to incorporate these strange and acciden- tal effects into a political context was with Birth of Fascism (Fig. 11), which illustrated, according to Siqueiros, Lenin's metaphor, "The Soviet Union as an immovable rock resists all tempests." The painting depicts the bankruptcy of the capi- talist system and its creation, fascism: in a "tempestuous sea" stands the Statue of Liberty, submerged to the neck. At the right "floats a book, as symbol of the religions, of the morals and philosophies of the bourgeoisie, in total shipwreck." The central image of the painting is a raft on which is taking place, "in a bestial childbirth," the birth of a monster with the heads of Hitler, Hearst, and Mussolini. At the upper right stands upon an "immense rock," a symbol of the Soviet Union as the true salvation to the capitalist "shipwreck."25 In this work, done in a manner Siqueiros termed "dialectical real- ism," the superimposition of poured pigments and lacquers was the means used to create the dynamic painterly effects of the "catastrophic sea" of capitalism. In Stop the War (Fig. 12), painted concurrently with Birth of Fascism, Siqueiros used primarily the airbrush to illustrate in a similar literal manner "the transformation of the imperialist war into a civil war

against the capitalist oppressor." The work shows a multi- tude of advancing humanity, determined by collective efforts to halt war. In the upper register are various capitalist/fascist images: the small monster-type with a gas mask and swastika symbolizes war, and above this is a head representing the capitalist nations (which is joined to fascism), and to the left is a visual synthesis of World War I. To the right is an armed lighthouse flying the flag of International Communism, with various beams of light directed to key areas of the painting. The basic point was to demonstrate the international charac- ter of Popular Front opposition to fascist-imperialist forces- and the ultimate triumph of "the unanimous action of the masses."26 Technically Siqueiros here used the airbrush and stencils to create the effect of the advancing Popular Front masses and in the superimposition of transparent beams from the lighthouse which visually interrelate the painting's imagery.

Collective Suicide (nitrocellulose pigments on wood with applied panels) is the most complete visual summary of the painterly experimentation of the New York Workshop. The painting, in marked contrast to Birth of Fascism and Stop the War, does not have a contemporary political theme; rather, it depicts the self-destruction of various Inca groups, who hurled themselves into the sea rather than capitulate to the 16th-century Spanish invaders.27 The innovative technical ex- perimentation of Collective Suicide (Figs. 13-16) is, however, clearly of more interest than its thematic aspect. In painting it, a white primer coat was first applied to the wooden panel for the purpose of holding the paint, followed by a reddish- brown ground coat. Next, both paint and lacquer were

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Fig. 11. Birth of Fascism, 1936. Photo from Siqueiros, catalogue of 1951 exhibition at Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico, D.F.

poured (directly from the can/dripped with sticks) onto the panel, which was placed flat on the floor. It was the action of the lacquer, causing "holes" in the painting after evaporating and "freezing" the process, that created the quality of the "accidental" so praised by Siqueiros. Following this the air- brush was used to give its characteristically surface, or "transparent," effects (note especially the "clouds" over the central area). Finally, the applied sections, worked over with a jigsaw, were joined to give added dimension; in these sections the pigment was applied with airbrush through fris- kets.28

Thus, this one work is of paramount importance for the

investigation of the New York Experimental Workshop and its relationship to Siqueiros' subsequent artistic development, since it is a virtual compendium of the technical experimen- tation of the Workshop. With Collective Suicide, Siqueiros' new manner of working and his use of industrial tools, spe- cifically the spray gun and nitrocellulous pigments, resulted in a pictorial composition vastly different from his earlier work; moreover, this allover compositional character and manner of painting clearly anticipated Pollock's works of the late 1940s and early '50s. Yet, despite Siqueiros' concern in Collective Suicide with radical painterly experimentation, his intent was finally to produce a work with recognizable the- matic content. That is, it is essential to understand that all this experimentation had one basic aim-to create a new realistic, revolutionary art:

In the end, a new plastic language, a new and infinitely more rich graphic vocabulary for the art of the epoch of the REVOLU- TION, something definite for the surging of a form correspond-

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Fig. 12. Stop the War, 1936.

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Fig. 13. Collective Suicide, duco on wood with applied sections, 49 x 72', 1936. Collection: The Museum of Modern Art, N. Y.

Fig. 14. Collective Suicide, detail (center).

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Fig. 15. Collective Suicide, detail (lower right).

K ..1u.1M'_ Fig. 16. Collective Suicide, detail (left applied section). All photos of Collec- tive Suicide courtesy of MOMA.

ing to the ideological discourse of the revolution.... The realism which our new technique permits us to initiate is an active real- ism... that uses the present, palpable object and the objects sui generis filtered and reconstituted through the imagination and memory.29

While it was clear from the Workshop experience that the

"vocabulary for the art of the epoch of the REVOLUTION" would reflect official Communist Party policy, unfortunately Siqueiros never defined the new style of "active" or "dialec- tical" realism. From Workshop paintings (e.g., Birth of Fas- cism, Stop the War) it is obvious that this style was realistic in the sense that it presented political content in a literal format. Yet Siqueiros' "dialectical realism" was far removed from the sterile, academic "socialistic realism" then currently sanc- tioned in the Soviet Union. Seemingly, Siqueiros was claim- ing the artist's right to independently interpret and present Communist subject matter, as well as to complete freedom in technical areas.30 Siqueiros would not, however, produce an

artistically successful work in this "active realist" style until the Electricians' Union mural of 1939-40, when-with the addition of contemporary photographs as the source of the

painted imagery-he (and his team of Mexican and Spanish artists) would produce an important politico-artistic state- ment on the Spanish Civil War.

The Siqueiros Experimental Workshop gradually disinte-

grated after Siqueiros' departure for Spain in early 1937, and the members drifted apart. Without Siqueiros' powerful per- sonality and artistic prominence, there was little to hold the Workshop members together as a unit. There were, how- ever, a few post-Siqueirian Workshop productions; the May

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Day 1937 float, already referred to, and a three-dimensional mural (of approximately 40 by 28 feet) for the "Save Czecho- slovakia Rally" at Madison Square Garden on October 2, 1938.31

1 A notable exception is Shifra Goldman's article, "Siqueiros and Three Early Murals in Los Angeles," Art Journal, Summer, 1974, concerning his work of 1932. The case of Siqueiros only typifies the lack of serious investigation of 20th-century (political) Mexican art by U.S. critics and historians. Besides Goldman's, I can point to only two other worthwhile articles on 20th-century Mexican muralism: David Scott on Orozco's Pomona College fresco, Art Journal, Fall, 1955 and Max Kozloff on Rivera's Detroit mural cycle, Art- forum, November, 1973. 2 For a broad picture of the U.S. artist during the New Deal, see Francis V. O'Connor's The New Deal Art Projects: An Anthology of Memoirs, Smith- sonian Institution Press, 1971 and Art for the Millions, New York Graphic Society, 1973. 3 See Goldman, "Siqueiros and Three Early Murals," and especially a speech made by Siqueiros to the Hollywood John Reed Club on September 2, 1932- a major statement concerning the nature of his muralistic experimentation. Reprinted in Raquel Tibol, David Siqueiros, un Mexicano y su Obra, Empre- sas Editoriales, Mexico D.F., 1969, pp. 101-15. 4 For a listing of the lectures and exhibitions, see Tibol, Siqueiros, pp. 46, 298-99. 5That is, in Los Angeles Siqueiros abandoned the traditional buon fresco technique, and experimented with the use of the much more rapidly drying white, waterproof cement and spray gun to apply the pigment. See "What is Plastic Exercise and How It was Realized" by Siqueiros in Tibol, pp. 123-30, for the technical and ideological innovations of this work. 6 From interview with Harold Lehman, a member of the New York Workshop, (1-8-1973), who recalled seeing photos of the models and the mural in 1936. At the time Lehman found the work "very exciting-a whole new thing." Similarly, Reuben Kadish and Philip Guston (Goldstein at this time) were very enthusiastic about photos of the mural, which they had seen while in Mexico in 1934 (Guston letter to Lehman, July 1934). 7 For the view of the CPUSA toward Rivera at this time, see "Robert Evan's" (pseudonym of Joseph Freeman, who would be expelled himself from the Party in the late 1930s) "Painting and Politics: The Case of Diego Rivera" in New Masses, February 1932.

For a more objective account of Rivera's support of Trotsky during the 1930s see Robert J. Alexander's Trotskyism in Latin America, Stanford Uni- versity, 1973; Chapter 9, "Leon Trotsky, Diego Rivera, and Mexican Trotsky- ism." The author leans toward the view (expressed by many Mexican Trot- skyites) that Rivera was a political fraud, and had never taken seriously his support of Trotsky. Although the "debates" were covered by the U.S. mass media (see Time, 9-

9-1935) the most comprehensive report of the controversy was Emmanuel Eisenberg's article, "Battle of the Century," New Masses, 12-10-1935. 9 Information re the Mexican delegation is found in the report of the Asem- blea Nacional de Productores de Artes Plasticas (copy from Siqueiros ar- chives, Mexico D.F.). At the Congress Orozco delivered a paper on "The Mexican Experience in the Plastic Arts" and Siqueiros read a collectively prepared paper, a brief history of modern Mexican painting (these are re- printed in Proceedings, First American Artists, 1936, New York, pp. 97-103). O According to what seems to have been intended as a press release; type-

written ms. on Workshop stationery (copy from Siqueiros archives). " A six-page ms. from the MOMA Library, written by Siqueiros and Harold Lehman and read by Lehman to an Artists Union meeting, details the aims and organization of the Workshop. Funds, for example, were obtained by tuition ($5-$15 per month) and lecture and sales percentages. All Artists Union members were invited to "come and work with us in developing what we have started." 12 Harold Lehman, "For an Artists Union Workshop," Art Front, October, 1937. Mr. Lehman has been an extremely valuable source of information for Siqueiros' New York period; he fortunately has "retained every scrap of

material developed by the Workshop experience" (letter to author of 1-7- 1974) and has generously provided me with copies of all Workshop docu- mentation in his possession, as well as discussing the period at length with me during the course of several interviews. '3The most important private patron of the Workshop was George Gershwin, who commissioned the 1936 portrait depicting himself during a concert at the Metropolitan Opera House with family members, friends, and Siqueiros in the front row. Other 1936 Gershwin commissions included Self-Portrait with Mirror and Nina Madre, according to Roberto Berdecio, interview 7-13-1975. 14 Lehman letter to author, the "Americans" (e.g., Lehman, Horr, Pollock, McCoy) also had their own work for the N.Y. Federal Art Project. 15 Lehman, Art Front article. 16 According to Lehman, who was trained as a sculptor and was very active in the production of Workshop floats, they were constructed with an armature of chicken-wire and covered with papier-mache. The construction of floats for political purposes was quite common during the New Deal period; see the February 1937 Art Front for representative examples. 17 Lehman interview, 1-9-1973. 18 Lehman, Art Front article. 19 Lehman letter to author, 9-7-1974; see the smaller masonite panel studies in Fig. 5.

While the Workshop produced art specifically for the CPUSA-indeed, Siqueiros wrote to a friend at this time that the Party consulted the Workshop for "all matters concerning graphic questions"-it must be understood that by no means were all the artists of the Workshop CPUSA members (e.g., in an interview, 1-8-1973, Lehman said that neither he, Jackson Pollock, nor Sande McCoy were Party members). It is vital to recall that the years of the Popular Front (1935-39) were marked by much independent support of the CPUSA, a fact often obscured during the Cold War period. 20Axel Horn (Horr in the 1930s), "Jackson Pollock: the Hollow and the Bump," Carleton Miscellany, Summer 1966, pp. 85-6. 21 Siqueiros' letterto Blanca Luz Brum, d. 6-9-1936; from Siqueiros archives. 22Siqueiros' letter to Maria Asunsolo, d. 4-6-1936; from Tibol, p. 196. 23 Siqueiros' letter to Maria Asunsolo, d. 4-17-1936; from Tibol, p. 201. 24 Siqueiros' letter to Blanca Luz Brum. 25 The preceding is paraphrased from Siqueiros' letter to Maria AsOnsolo (4-6- 1936), Tibol, p. 195. 26 This passage is also paraphrased from Siqueiros' lengthy description of the painting in his letter to Maria Asunsolo (4-17-1936), Tibol, pp. 199-201.

These two works, done on masonite panels approximately one meter square with nitrocellulose pigments, were, according to the artist's widow, Angelica Arenal de Siqueiros (interview, 7-15-1975), studies for photo-murals which were never completed because of Workshop interruptions. 27The painting was commissioned by Dr. Gregory Zilboorg, at this time the psychoanalyst of George Gershwin. For information on Zilboorg (who was especially interested in the problem of suicide) and his relationship with Gershwin, see Charles Schwartz, Gershwin: His Life and Music, Bobbs- Merrill, 1973, pp. 236-38. 28 Interview with Lehman, 1-9-1973, and tape of 4-24-1973. Lehman does not recall any artist outside the Workshop-and outside the commercial art field, where use of the airbrush originated-using the airbrush at this time. 29 Siqueiros' letter to Blanca Luz Brum. 30 Siqueiros maintained this independent position throughout his career, and in 1955 (after his third trip to the USSR) went to the extent of issuing an "Open Letter to Soviet Painters," which broadly criticized many tendencies of Soviet art during the Stalinist era (reprinted in Masses and Mainstream, vol. 9, no. 3, April 1956). 31 For a description of the making of the mural and its part in the rally, see Axel Horr's article in the Daily Worker, 10-3-1938, "Minute Men and Women of the UAA." As is implied from the title, Workshop members had by this time become allied with the New York Artists Union (or by 1938, the United Artists of America).

Laurance Hurlburt is completing his doctoral dissertation on the seminal period in Siqueiros' development as muralist, the 1930s, for the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

ART JOURNAL, XXXV/3 246

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