War

Gallery 286, Modern and Contemporary Art, second floor

Main Building

War

1939

David Alfaro Siqueiros (Mexican, 1896–1974)

David Alfaro Siqueiros divided his life equally between painting and radical politics. In 1936, the artist took up arms to fight for the Republican army against Franco's fascist forces in the Spanish Civil War---the conflict that spurred him to paint this scene when he returned to Mexico in 1939. Realized in duco paint (synthetic lacquer), War was one of eleven paintings exhibited in Siqueiros's first solo exhibition in New York at the Pierre Matisse Gallery in 1940. Stylistically, the artist's highly sculptural rendering of a monumental nude body imbues this portable picture with a mural-like power.

Gallery 286, Modern and Contemporary Art, second floor

Object Details

Title:

War

Date:

1939

Artist:

David Alfaro Siqueiros (Mexican, 1896–1974)

Medium:

Duco on two panels

Dimensions:

48 5/8 × 63 7/8 × 1 1/2 inches (123.5 × 162.2 × 3.8 cm) Framed: 52 1/4 × 67 1/2 × 3 inches (132.7 × 171.5 × 7.6 cm)

Classification:

Paintings

Credit Line:

Gift of Inés Amor, 1945

Accession Number:

1945-84-1a,b

Geography:

Made in Mexico, North and Central America

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Gallery 286, Modern and Contemporary Art, second floor

Main Building

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