Presents eighty fundamental Works by more than forty outstanding Mexican artists active in the first half of the twentieth Century. This period was one of great creativity, intense experimentation, and cultural development, and the artists and patrons of the Works in this Collection were intensely driven by the need to create an aesthetic identity that would represent Mexico as a nation state.

United by their belief in the importance of the human image in art, they distanced themselves both from the social realism of their predecessors and from the pure abstraction of many of their contemporaries. Shifra Goldman begins with a brief examination of the era and issues of muralism and the art of Rufino Tamayo. She then focuses on the confrontation between socially conscious art and "pure painting" that began in the late 1950s and resulted in the formation of Nueva Presencia.

A comprehensive look at four transformative decades that put Mexico's modern art on the map In the wake of the 1910-20 Revolution, Mexico emerged as a center of modern art, closely watched around the world. Highlighted are the achievements of the tres grandes (three greats)--José Clemente Orozco, Diego Rivera, and David Alfaro Siqueiros--and other renowned figures such as Rufino Tamayo and Frida Kahlo, but the book goes beyond these well-known names to present a fuller picture of the period from 1910 to 1950. Fourteen essays by authors from both the United States and Mexico offer a thorough reassessment of Mexican modernism from multiple perspectives. Some of the texts delve into thematic topics--developments in mural painting, the role of the government in the arts, intersections between modern art and cinema, and the impact of Mexican art in the United States--while others explore specific modernist genres--such as printmaking, photography, and architecture. This beautifully illustrated book offers a comprehensive look at the period that brought Mexico onto the world stage during a period of political upheaval and dramatic social change. Published in association with the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City Exhibition Schedule: Philadelphia Museum of Art (10/25/16-01/08/17) Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City (02/03/17-04/30/17) Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (June-September 2017)

Infinitas Gracias is the first collection of the work of Alfredo Vilchis Roque, one of Mexico's most famous contemporary painters, and his sons. In the tradition of Catholic votives, each painting tells a miraculous tale and gives thanks to the intervening saint. Ablaze with intense color hearkening back to the natural pigment dyes of ancient Mexico, these works portray the kaleidoscope of issues that constitute modern urban existence. With over 200 paintings, from circus adventures to household accidents to adultery, drugs, and prostitution, Infinitas Gracias weaves together a bizarre tapestry of stories, some disturbing, some comical -- all unerringly wrought and profoundly touching.

This is a new release of the original 1940 edition.

"The little-known story of viceregal Mexico is told by an international team of scholars whose work was previously available only piecemeal or not at all in English. Much of their research was undertaken especially for this volume."--BOOK JACKET.

María Izquierdo (1902–1955) and Frida Kahlo (1907–1954) were the first two Mexican women artists to achieve international recognition. During the height of the Mexican muralist movement, they established successful careers as easel painters and created work that has become an integral part of Mexican modernism. Although the iconic Kahlo is now more famous, the two artists had comparable reputations during their lives. Both were regularly included in major exhibitions of Mexican art, and they were invariably the only women chosen for the most important professional activities and honors. In a deeply informed study that prioritizes critical analysis over biographical interpretation, Nancy Deffebach places Kahlo’s and Izquierdo’s oeuvres in their cultural context, examining the ways in which the artists participated in the national and artistic discourses of postrevolutionary Mexico. Through iconographic analysis of paintings and themes within each artist’s oeuvre, Deffebach discusses how the artists engaged intellectually with the issues and ideas of their era, especially Mexican national identity and the role of women in society. In a time when Mexican artistic and national discourses associated the nation with masculinity, Izquierdo and Kahlo created images of women that deconstructed gender roles, critiqued the status quo, and presented more empowering alternatives for women. Deffebach demonstrates that, paradoxically, Kahlo and Izquierdo became the most successful Mexican women artists of the modernist period while most directly challenging the prevailing ideas about gender and what constitutes important art.