Vida Americana: Mexican Muralists Remake American Art, 1925–1945

Feb 17, 2020–Jan 31, 2021

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The economic meltdown that followed the 1929 crash of the U.S. stock market shattered the country’s faith in itself and its future. Guided by the Mexican muralists’ creation of unifying national myths rooted in the struggles and triumphs of ordinary citizens, artists in the United States remodeled elements of national history and everyday life into epics of strength and endurance in an effort to help the country revitalize itself.

Black American painters such as Aaron Douglas, Charles White, and Hale Woodruff found inspiration in the muralists’ celebration of the Mexican people’s fight for emancipation from the tyranny of autocratic rule. In constructing redemptive narratives of social justice out of their own history of oppression, resistance, and liberation, these artists transformed that history into a new collective identity, one that foregrounded the contributions of Black Americans to national life. Thomas Hart Benton likewise celebrated the Mexican muralists. Hailing them as a powerful countervailing force to “elite” modes of European abstraction, Benton urged his fellow artists to follow their example of using a modern visual vocabulary to speak directly to the public about socially relevant issues. Although from a contemporary perspective Benton’s critical history of the United States often relies problematically on ethnic and racial stereotypes of Black and Native Americans, his goal was to invoke the nation’s past in order to create a shared vision of the future.