vision
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revolutionary
artist

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From ‘Siqueiros’ mural in Chapultepec Palace’

FTER DAVID ALFARO

Siqueiros was released

from jail last year, many
were surprised by the gentle
tone of the canvases—land-
scapes, flowers, even a couple
of Christs—he had painted
during his incarceration.

He is known to the world
as a revolutionary par excel-
lence, having taken up arms
against the Porforio Diaz
tyranny as a youth, and later
against the Franco rebellion
in Spain.

In addition, with Diego Ri-
vera, Orozco and others, he
led the “people’s art” muralist
revolution which blossomed
on Mexico’s walls, in the
1920s.

Siqueiros.is a mdany-sided
man, and gentleness is one
aspect (humor is another)
of his spirit, along with inex-
tinguishable anger against
oppression and injustice.

One may guess at the kind
of solace it brought him,
during those four prison
years, to paint what he
painted.

In any case, the rapid sale
of the canvases to wealthy
collectors for many tens of
thousands of dollars as soon
as they were exhibited in
Mexico City must have ap-
pealed to his sense of humor.

He is notoriously and im-
penitently Red, but not even
conviction for the crime of
“social dissolution” could af-
fect his position as one of the
top artists to “buy as an
investment”.

Most of the money realized
from the paintings went to
alleviate the lot of the eight
trade union and/or Commun-
ist Party leaders who were
jailed with him but have not
got out, and to continue the
fight to free them.

But Siqueiros has the en-

ergy of 20 ordinary humans,
and it turned out that the
canvases were only a minor
part of the work he did in
those prison years. What we
now know to have been his
major activity provides a
stunning example of the kind
of man he is.

Already in his middle six-
ties, he would have been ap-
proaching 80 by the end of
this prison sentence, and had
no idea when or if the inter-
national campaign to free
him’ would succeed.

Yet he set himself to sketch
out the biggest mural ever
conceived by an artist.

This apparently fantastic
scheme took shape in his
mind as a result of earlier
talks with the Mexican ce-
ment _multi-millionaire Manu-
el Saurez. :

.More or less as a hobby,
Saurez runs the Cuernavaca
resort hotel Casino de la
Selva, to which he never
stops making additions — a
bowling alley, an Olympic-
size swimming pool, a night
club.

Saurez proposed a conven-
tion hall in the hotel grounds,
to be adorned with paintings
by Mexico’s most famous liv-
ing artist:

The fact that the hotel
caters to rich tourists—main-
ly North Americans — who
are staunch anti-Communists
did not worry Saurez. He is
a Mexican first, a multi-mil-
lionaire second.

So Siqueiros, sitting in his
narrow cell, contemplated the
fact that he had agreed to
make 20 paintings each con-
siderably larger than the cell.

Anyone else would have
sent word to Saurez to forget

about the whole thing. In-
stead, Siqueiros worked out
more than 200 sketches for
murals to cover the entire
walls and ceiling of Saurez’s
convention hall, depicting the
history of man’s struggles
“from darkness into light’.

The official announcement
of Siqueiros’ release said he
was needed to complete “a

‘work of national importance,”

the Mexican Revolution mu-
ral in Chapultepec Palace
which was half done at the
time of his arrest.

When Saurez looked over
the sketches for the Cuerna-
vaca project, he delightedly
signed a $400,000 contract
for the work, and began con-
struction of the convention
halle é

Siqueiros went back to
work in Chapultepec Palace
while talks began about the
unprecedented technical prob-
lems of the Cuernavaca job.

In the midst of the discus-
sions, the 69-year-old artist
fell from a scaffolding. The
fall put him out of action for
a time, and later caused
attacks of dizziness which
made work on a scaffold dif-
ficult or impossible.

The attacks of dizziness
have become less frequent,
but they further complicated
the technical problems of
Cuernavaca. The solution was
found in the construction not
far from the hotel of a “mural
studio” such as never existed
anywhere before.

The mural would be paint-
ed on huge panels of asbestos
cement, backed by steel strips
for fixing them later to the
convention hall walls.

Twelve electric and mecha-
nical cranes would lift the
panels to any height, or sink
them to any necessary depth

into slots in the studio floor.

Thus all the painting ex-
cept for the central ceiling
could be carried out at ground
level.

The bill for his convention
hall-which for him has now
become a “chapel” (Siqueiros
says jokingly, “Why not a
cathedral?”) is astronomical.

It would probably run to
$1,500,000 by the end of next
year when the “chapel” will
be opened to the public.

The statistics of the pro-
ject are such as would make
a movie press agent drunk
with joy.

Siqueiros and his team will
have put in about 60,000 man-
hours, using three tons of
paint and 12,600 quarts of
solvent, to decorate more
than 110 tons of panels which
will cover 28,000 square feet.

In addition, an extensive
series of stained-glass win-
dows will be produced as part
of the grand design on the
sunny side of the “chapel”.

To top it off Saurez has
decided to make a heliport
on the “chapel” roof.

Saurez put up a little ce-
ment tower in the studio from
which, at an appropriate dis-
tance, he may inspect the
progress of the work on his
frequent visits.

A patron out of some land
of dreams, he merely inspects
and does not interfere.

Chain smoking from dawn
to dusk (“I gave it up in
‘jail,’ he says, “so I can in-
dulge myself now’) Siqueiros
darts about ‘the studio with
inexhaustible energy.

Still he has time and pa-
tience for the reports, pho-
tographers and assorted art
lovers and rubbernecks who

flock to the studio.
As a painter for the people

’ he doesn’t like to turn away

anyone interested in the way.
the job is done; but the visit-
ors add greatly to the strain ~
of his titanic undertaking.

The mural will depict
specifically the history of
Mexican man, but “projected
universally,” as Siqueiros exX-
plains, “since the develop:
ment of all people is the samé
although the stages are dif-
ferent.”

From the roots of an enor
mous tree, shadowy, skeletal —
figures — primitive man—
move into a desolate lands-

~cape. The emerging -multi-

tudes are shown in bitter
struggles, some triumphant,
some drowned in blood.

Gradually, two steps for-
ward and one step back, they
move through the centuries
away from hunger and terror
toward dignity, and fulfilment
through cooperation.

For Siqueiros the work iS
a grandiose climax to his dec-
ades-long struggle against
“escapist” art, to bring art
“back to man—to the prob-
lems of man in our own land _
as a symbol or concrete ex —
pression of the problems 0
universal man.”

He expects plenty of con-
troversy with the formalist
schools in Mexico and else
where—and with the “Social-
ist realism’ schools as well
—and will welcome it all for
the positive results it must
have.

So Siqueiros remains the —

revolutionary he always wa5

—on a scale so vast, now, 49

to take the wind out of most
“experts’” sails. Whatever
their verdict on his “crucial
work” the words of niggling
criticism will not come easily:

Cuernavaca, Mexico

By CEDRIC BELFRAGE

July 22, 1966—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 4

Beas se Agee