MFAH Brings 'Paint the Revolution' To Houston

HOUSTON, TX — Frida Kahlo. Diego Rivera. Rufino Tamayo. José Clemente Orozco. If those names quicken your pulse, you need to mark June 25 on your calendar, because that's when Paint the Revolution: Mexican Modernism, 1910–1950 opens at The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

The exhibit features more than 175 works, including painting, photographs, books, newspapers, and murals, and explores the development of modern art in Mexico and the influences of the politics, demographic, cultural, and political forces that formed it.

Other artists represented in the exhibit include David Alfaro Siqueiros, Manuel and Lola Álvarez Bravo, Miguel Covarrubias, Alfredo Ramos Martínez, Carlos Mérida, Roberto Montenegro, and Dr. Atl (Gerardo Murillo).

One unique feature of the exhibit is the display of three murals by "the three great ones" — Orozco, Rivera, and Siqueiros — created digitally and shown on gallery walls.

“While some of the artists represented in Paint the Revolution may be familiar to visitors, many of the names and images will be new to Houston audiences," said Gary Tinterow, director of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. "We are grateful to our colleagues at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artes for making this exhibition possible, and we are thrilled to offer visitors the opportunity to examine firsthand the emergence of Mexico as a center of Modern art.”

In addition to the exhibit, which closes on October 1, there will be special viewings and lectures, including a opening-day seminar that will take place on Sunday, June 25 at 3 p.m.

“Scholars have long understood Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, and David Alfaro Siqueiros as the driving forces behind muralism and the transformations that swept Mexican art after the Revolution,” added Mari Carmen Ramírez, the Wortham Curator of Latin American Art at the MFAH and organizing curator of the Houston presentation. “Paint the Revolution, however, exposes audiences to the lesser-known forms of expression — from printmaking to photography — employed by a broad range of Mexican artists as they reacted to the social and political changes in Mexico during the first half of the 20th century.”

Click here for more information about Paint the Revolution: Mexican Modernism, 1910–1950.

— Image: Frida Kahlo, Self-Portrait on the Border Line between Mexico and the United States, 1932, oil on metal, collection of María and Manuel Reyero, New York. © 2017 Banco de México Diego Rivera Frida Kahlo Museums Trust, Mexico D. F. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York