Maternity (From the "Mexican Masters Suite")

David Alfaro Siqueiros

An image from the "Mexican Masters Suite", published by Editions Press, San Francisco under the direction of master printer Ernest F. de Soto. Included in the suite were eight lithographs, two prints per artist, by Rufino Tamayo, Jose Luis Cuevas, David Alfaro Siqueiros, and Francisco Zuniga.

This is one of two images that Siqueiros did for the "Mexican Masters Suite", published and printed by Editions Press in San Francisco in 1973. The suite was composed of eight signed lithographs in colors in an edition of 125 (100 on Arches), plus various proofs.

The hors-commerce portfolios of 25 included a bronze sculpture by Francisco Zuniga. The artists included Siqueiros, Rufino Tamayo, Jose Luis Cuevas and Francisco Zuniga. The portfolio came about largely due to the efforts of Editions Press partner and Master Printer Ernest DeSoto.

The total printing record for this work is 193: 1 Bon a Tirer (BAT); 10 EPI (Editions Press Impressions), 25 Artist's Proofs; 100 Arabic numbered proofs; 25 Roman Numeral proofs (like this impression); 25 Hors Commerce (H.C.) Impressions, 4 Presentation Proofs (P.P.) and 3 Printer's Proofs (P.P.).

David Alfaro Siqueiros, muralist, painter, and printmaker, worked alongside Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orzoco in establishing the Mexican Mural Renaissance. Much of his work reflects the deep social and political struggles of the Mexican people throughout his lifetime, and his own experience as an activist and soldier played key elements in his artistic expression.

Born in Chihuahua City, Mexico on December 29, 1896, his life would take an activist leaning early on. He studied at the Franco-English College in Mexico City beginning in 1908, and it was most likely here, under the tutelage of Marxist teachers, that his awareness of social and political injustices were given life: at only fifteen he would lead his first strike, at the San Carlos Academy (later the Academy of Fine Arts), for a change in its teaching methods. It ended in victory. Later, four years as an active combatant in the Revolution earned him rank as Captain, and in 1918, Siqueiros organized the Congress of Soldier Artists.

His activism and his radical publications were often cause for his arrest, but despite this he constantly created his art. Spending six months in Lecumberri prison in Mexico City in 1930 for participating in a May Day rally, he created 13 woodcuts from scrapwood which he would publish himself upon his release. Confinement in Taxco saw the completion of over one hundred paintings, exhibited in Casino Espanol, and, upon being expelled from Mexico in 1931, he came to Los Angeles and created three works to be shown at Chouinard, the Plaza Art Center, and a private Santa Monica residence. Indeed, until his death, Siqueiros remained a fighter, his beliefs and struggles mirrored by a vast and varied body of work, a man for whom art, revolution, and gangsterism were inseperable.

David Alfaro Siqueiros died in Cuernavaca, Mexico on January 6, 1974.