7 -- Tropical America

1932
David Alfara Siqueiros
18'H x 82'W

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History behind the Piece

Upon is expulsion form Mexico in 1932 for political activity, David Alfara Siqueiros settled in Los Angeles for six months. During that brief time, he completed three murals. The first, Street Meeting, was painted at the Chouinard School of Art, where he taught a class on fresco paining. He painted the last mural, Portait of Present Day Mexico (which still exists), at a home in Pacific Palisades. But Siqueiros' most important mural in Los Angeles was his second -- Tropical America. The powerful political statement was executed along the exterior of the second floor of the Italian Hall, where the Plaza Art Center was located.

The title was suggested by F.K. Ferenz, the director of the Plaza Art Center who, along with Dean Cornwall, one of the muralists of the Los Angeles Public Library, sponsored the work. Commercial companies donated paint, cement, mechanical equipment and wood for the scaffold. Siqueiros, assisted by approximately 20 artists known as the Bloc of Mural Painters, began the mural in mid-August. He worked primarily at night, paining with an airbrush after the design was outlined on the wall with a projector. The fresco, made of cement rather than the traditional plaster, was completed the night before its dedication on October 9, 1932.

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The Piece

As the visual and symbolic focus of the piece, an Indian peon representing oppression by United State imperialism is crucified on a double cross capped by an American eagle. A Mayan pyramid in the background is overrun by vegetation, while an armed Peruvian peasant and a Mexican campesino sit on a wall in the upper right corner, ready to defend themselves.

So emotionally charged was this allegorical imagery that within six months, a section of the mural visible from Olvera Street was painted out. Within a year, the work was completely covered. Portraying the struggle against imperialism was particularly offensive to Christine Sterling, the leading promoter of Olvera Street, presumably because it did not conform to her image of a docile and tranquil Mexican village.

Virtually forgotten for years, the mural was rediscovered in the late 1960s when the whitewash began to peel off. However, it was severely damager shortly thereafter by exposure to the sun. A plywood cover which now hides the work, was installed in 1982 to prevent further deterioration. The mural has now been conserved.

In executing this work, along with his other murals in Los Angeles, Siqueiros extensively used mechanical equipment, such as the airbrush, for the first time, Tropical America is also significant in Siqueiros's development as an artist, for it was his first attack on American imperialism. Most importantly, it was the first large mural in the United States that created a public space by being painted on an ordinary exterior wall. So unusual was its location that at its dedication Cornwell predicted it would stimulate the execution of murals on similar blank walls. But it took the political and social upheavals of the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights movement 35 years later for the prophecy to come true. When murals began appearing in urban neighborhoods across the nation during the 1960s, Tropical America acquired its most far=reaching significance by becoming their predecessor and prototype.

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The Artist

David Alfara Siqueiros (1896-1974), born in Chihuahua, Mexico, joined Jose Orozco and Diego Rivera as the 20th Century's most influential muralists. They revolutionized mural content and style by portraying Mexico's rich history and contemporary economic problems in visually bold political terms. Influenced by Marxism in his treatment of the class struggle, Siqueiros believed public murals were a powerful and effective medium to make hi work accessible to a broad audience traditionally ignored by elitist art institutions. After becoming Secretary of the Communist Party in 1928 he was frequently jailed or expelled from Mexico and nearly gave up painting. It was during one of these expulsions that he came to Los Angeles. His most productive artistic period began in 1944, when he returned to Mexico after an exile due to allegations of his role in Leon Trotsky's assassination. This fertile period culminated in 1966 with his dramatic murals at Chalpultapec Castle depicting the overthrow of the Porfirio Diaz regime.