1. Contributions from Mexico and the United States – Early 20 th century

2. Much of the early 20 th century art in Mexico and the United States was created in response to a bewildering assortment of events and circumstances. In the early 20 th century, the poor and landless Mexico tried to free themselves from corrupt landowners. The Mexican Revolution began in 1911 and ended in 1921 In Mexico, political and social turmoil motivated many artists to create bold and powerful images expressing their reactions.

3. The Muralists in Mexico Muralists chose the political and social problems of the Mexican people as their subject matter. The Muralists revived an old tradition of creating art on building walls. They used their murals to tell stories of revolutions, native traditions, festivals, and legends. Painting their huge pictures on the walls of public buildings allowed these artists to take their work directly to the people.

4. Diego Rivera One of the most famous Mexican Muralists. He created the first modern mural painting in Mexico. As a young man, Rivera studied art of the great Italian fresco artists, which helped him to realize his own artistic goal: to record in art the gallant struggle of the Mexican peasant.

5. Liberation of the Peon Artist: Diego Rivera

6. Rivera draws equally on his skills as a painter and as a master storyteller to create this work. It shows a group of somber revolutionary soldiers cutting the ropes that bind a dead peon, or peasant. In the distance, a hacienda burns; this indicates that the landowner responsible for the peon’s death has already been punished. Rivera’s story is not difficult to read or to understand- the peon has been “liberated” from a life of oppression and suffering.

7. Jose Clemente Orozco Developed a style of painting that earned him the title of the Mexican Goya. It is a style stripped of everything by emotion. Orozco used it to paint pictures that expressed his anger for all forms of tyranny.

8. Zapatistas Artist: Jose Clemente Orozco

9. Even in pictures that first seem calm and quiet, there is an undeniable undercurrent of power and fury. Here the followers of the revolutionary leader Zapata are shown marching to battle. The determined plodding of the grim peons and the rhythm created by their forward-pressing bodies produce a steady undeniable movement across the work.

10. David Alfaro Siqueiros Just as involved in art as he was in politics Several times he was sentenced to prison or exiled for his political beliefs.

11. Echo of a Scream Artist: David Alfaro Siqueiros

12. His nightmarish protest against war He used graduation value to model three- dimensional forms that look as if they are projecting forward in space. Three-dimensional quality makes his work more vivid, like a horrible dream brought into sharp focus. Centers his attention on one of the most innocent and helpless victims of war-a baby The second, larger head may be a symbol for all children killed, crippled, orphaned, or made homeless by war.

13. Impact of the Muralists Clearly, the art of Rivera, Orozco, and Siqueiros reveals a strong preoccupation with suffering and war. Much of their art was concerned with telling the story of peons’ bitter struggle to overthrow the corrupt landowners. They told this story in bold murals that brought about a revolution in painting. The changes in art were just as intense as the political upheaval that altered the course of events in their country.

14. Frida Kahlo She used art to express their own personal feelings. Born in Mexico City in 1907, Kahlo rose to prominence as a painter at a time when few women artists were taken seriously. Polio as a child and a bus accident when she was 18 sentenced her to a lifelong struggle with pain. When recovering from the accident, she turned to painting. From the beginning, her paintings provided the opportunity to express her feelings about herself.

15. Frida and Diego Rivera Artist: Frida Kahlo

16. In 1931, Kahlo painted a wedding portrait in which she and her husband stand stiffly, hand in hand, looking out at the viewer rather than at each other. The joy that one expects to find in a wedding portrait is lacking here, and the artist’s solemn expressions may hint at her uncertainty about her future with her new husband. Although rewarding, there marriage was marked by bitter quarrels.

17. American Art At the beginning of the 20 th century, the United States was a growing industrial nation. It was a land of assembly lines, locomotives, airships, steam shovels, telephones, and building that rose ten or more stories above sidewalks jammed with shoppers. American art at the start of the 20 th century was conservative.

18. American Art Though artists like Homer, Eakins, and Ryder were still working, art as a whole did not reveal much progress or excitement. Many American artists still felt that success required study in Europe. Once there, however, they adopted traditional painting techniques and subjects matter rather than seek out a new approaches and images.

19. The Ashcan School This conservative trend was challenged early in the century by a group of young realistic painters. These artists rebelled against the idealism of the academic approach. Instead, they chose paint the life they saw around them. Most of these painters had been newspaper cartoonists or magazine illustrators, and that work had opened their eyes to the contemporary world. The Americans had the same feeling for the sprawling, bustling city of the 20 th century as the Dutch had for the countryside of their time.

20. The Ashcan School For subject matter, the Americans turned to the city’s nightlife and its cafes, streets, alleys and theaters. Their goal was to record all the city's color, excitement, and glamour. When this group held its first show in New York in 1908, however, they were laughingly called the Ashcan School, a popular name identifying the group of artists who made realistic pictures of the most ordinary features of the contemporary scene.

21. John Sloan An example of the kind of painting produced by members of this group is Sloan’s Backyards, Greenwich Village.

22. Backyards, Greenwich Village Artist: John Sloan

23. As your eye sweeps over this picture, it eventually comes to rest on the cat sitting contentedly on the fence at the bottom center. From there, your gaze moves to the second cat gingerly picking its way through the snow toward two children. One child uses a small shovel to pat a snowman into shape. The diagonal formed by his arm and the shovel directs your attention to the fence at the right. The fence leads you across the painting to the face of a smiling girl peering out of the tenement window.

24. George Bellows Was not a member of the Ashcan School. Created paintings that were similar in many ways to those of Sloan and his companions. Realizing that anything could be used as subject matter for art, Bellows concentrated on the subject he loved most; sports.

25. Stag at Sharkey’s Artist: George Bellows

26. Applying paint to the canvas with slashing brushstrokes, Bellows was able to reproduce the violent action of the ring in this work. From the vantage point of the ringside seat, you share the wild excitement of the fight crowd. Illuminate by the light overhead and silhouetted against the dark background, the two boxers flail away at each other, both willing to accept brutal punishment rather than give ground.

27. The Armory Show of 1913 This was an art show held in a New York armory in 1913, created to show works of European as well as American artists. Europeans had seen modern styles develop, whereas most Americans had not, and reacted with laughter, anger, and attempts to understand. As a result of the show, many Americans turned away from the conservative style and began to experiment with new styles.

28. The End of an Era The Armory Show marked the end of one era and the start of another. Many American artists, after seeing the new styles of the Fauves, Expressionists, and Cubists, turned away from traditional academic art to initiate their own daring experiments. Thus, the Armory Show set the state for the development of modern art in America. In the years that followed, New York replaced Paris as the art capital of the world.