David Alfaro Siqueiros - Mexican Artists

David Alfaro Siqueiros (December 29, 1896 in Camargo, Chihuahua, Mexico - January 6, in the year 1974 at Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico) was a renowned painter and muralist recognized for his social realism work.

His prominent projects include his shared mural at the Mexican Electricians’ Union (1939-40), From Porfiriato to the Revolution at the Museum of National History (1957-55), March of Humanity and the Polyforum Cultural Siqueiros at Avenida Insurgentes (1965-71), and his had a main role in obtaining mural commissions for artists on the University City campus of the National Autonomous University of Mexico during 1950s Mexico City.

Siqueiros was one of few famous Mexican muralists working at the time, including Diego Rivera, José Clement Orozco and Rufino Tamayo. His art honestly reflected the time period in which he actually grown as an artist. His art was intensely rooted in the Mexican Revolution, an aggressive and chaotic period in Mexican history in which different social and political factions fought for credit and power. The period during 1920s to the 1950s is recognized as the Mexican Renaissance, and Siqueiros was active in the effort to make an art that was at once Mexican and universal.

Siqueiros was awarded the Lenin Peace Prize for the year in 1966. His nephew is filmmaker David Siqueiros.

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