David Siqueiros was a member of the Mexican Communist Party, and a Stalinist and supporter of the Soviet Union who led an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate Leon Trotsky in May 1940.
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27 Facts About David Siqueiros
2.
Many details of David Siqueiros's childhood, including birth date, birthplace, first name, and where he grew up, were misstated during his life and long after his death, in some cases by himself.
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3.
David Siqueiros was born in Chihuahua in 1896, the second of three children.
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4.
David Siqueiros had two siblings: a sister, Luz, three years elder, and a brother "Chucho", a year younger.
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5.
David Siqueiros's mother died when he was four and their father sent the children to live with their paternal grandparents.
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6.
David Siqueiros's grandfather, nicknamed "Siete Filos", had an especially strong role in his upbringing.
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7.
Around this time, David Siqueiros was exposed to new political ideas, mainly along the lines of anarcho-syndicalism.
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8.
In 1911, at the age of fifteen, David Siqueiros was involved in a student strike at the Academy of San Carlos of the National Academy of Fine Arts that protested the school's teaching methodology and urged the impeachment of the school's director.
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9.
When Huerta fell in 1914, David Siqueiros became enmeshed in the "post-revolutionary" infighting, as the Constitutional Army battled the diverse political factions of Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata for control.
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10.
In 1922, David Siqueiros returned to Mexico City to work as a muralist for Alvaro Obregon's revolutionary government.
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11.
In 1923 David Siqueiros helped found the Syndicate of Revolutionary Mexican Painters, Sculptors and Engravers, which addressed the problem of public access to art through its paper, El Machete.
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12.
That year David Siqueiros helped author a manifesto in the newspaper "for the proletariat of the world".
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13.
David Siqueiros wanted the image – an Indian peon being crucified by American oppression – to be accessible from multiple angles.
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14.
David Siqueiros was unceremoniously deported from the United States for political activity the same year.
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15.
David Siqueiros was located by the police in a property supposedly rented by Angelica and Luis Arenal in the outskirts of the capital.
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16.
David Siqueiros fled to Guadalajara, hiding in the house of his old friend Jose Guadalupe Zuno and from there he moved to the mountain town of Hostotipaquillo.
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17.
David Siqueiros was formally processed and declared prisoner in the Lecumberri Preventive Prison.
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18.
David Siqueiros was charged for attempted homicide, criminal association, improper use of uniform, usurpation of functions, breaking and entering, firing a firearm and robbery.
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19.
In 1948, David Siqueiros was invited to teach a course on mural painting at an art academy in San Miguel Allende.
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20.
David Siqueiros participated in the first ever Mexican contingent at the XXV Venice Biennale exhibition with Orozco, Rivera and Tamayo in 1950, and he received the second prize for all exhibitors, which recognized the international status of Mexican art.
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21.
Yet by the 1950s, David Siqueiros returned to accepting commissions from what he considered a "progressive" Mexican state, rather than painting for galleries or private patrons.
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22.
David Siqueiros constructed an outdoor mural entitled The People to the University, the University to the People at the National Autonomous University of Mexico in Mexico City in 1952.
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23.
David Siqueiros was eventually arrested in 1960 for openly criticizing the President of Mexico, Adolfo Lopez Mateos, and leading protests against the arrests of striking workers and teachers, though the charges were commonly known to be false.
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24.
Unjustly imprisoned, David Siqueiros continued to paint, and his works continued to sell.
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25.
David Siqueiros immediately resumed working on his suspended murals in the Actors' Union and Chapultepec Castle.
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26.
David Siqueiros's body was buried in the Rotunda of Illustrious Persons in Mexico City.
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27.
David Siqueiros painted mostly murals and other portraits of the revolution – its goals, its past, and the current oppression of the working classes.
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