This volume documents the first international retrospective of one of Mexico's greatest artists, Maria Izquierdo. Trained privately, as was common for women of good social standing, she was unusual in also studying at the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes in Mexico City, where she was first a disciple of Diego Rivera and then developed intellectual bonds with Rufino Tamayo. Her work was included with theirs in a 1930 show of Mexican painting at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In 1936, Antonin Artaud visited Mexico seeking "a perfect example of primitive civilizations with a magical spirit", which he found in Izquierdo's paintings.

This set provides biographical profiles of artists who, for the last 500 years, have contributed to the visual arts of Mexico.

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.

Profiles 180 Mexican folk artists, profiling the works they have created out of clay, vegetable fibers, wood, metal, textiles, and stone which represent many different craft traditions.

With some 160 color photographs, this volume portrays the Mexican people, their cultures, and their folk arts, including textiles, ceramics, jewelry, lacquer, masks, and toys. It includes a guide to Mexico's indigenous peoples, a map, a glossary, and a bibliography. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR