David Siqueiros Jose

(1896-1974)
Born in Chihuahua. From a young age and before the end of life Siqueiros political activity combined with the professional classes in painting. He studied at the Academy of San Carlos (1911) and in the school Santa Anita (1913). In 1914-1918 participated in the Mexican Revolution, was an officer in the army of President Venustiano Carranza. From 1919 to 1922 Siqueiros traveled and studied in Europe. Upon his return to Mexico, along with D. Rivera and JC Orozco founded Syndicate revolutionary painters, sculptors and engravers, who enjoyed the support of the State. Then he completed murals in the National Preparatory School in Mexico City (1922-1923).
In 1924 Siqueiros was one of the leaders of the Mexican Communist Party. He helped organize unions, has worked in the working papers and participated in international congresses of trade unions and communist organizations in Moscow, Buenos Aires, Montevideo and New York. In 1930 he was arrested in 1931 exiled to Taxco, where he created many paintings, lithographs and woodcuts. In 1932-1934 and 1935-1936 Siqueiros worked in the U.S., where he decorated the facades of buildings paintings Chuinard Art School and Art Center Plaza in Los Angeles (1932) and founded an experimental workshop. Siqueiros has lectured and arranged exhibitions of his works in several cities in South America, worked with a group of artists in Buenos Aires over the composition, known as plastic etude (1933).

In 1937-1939 Siqueiros participated in the Spanish Civil War on the Republican side. In 1940 participated in organizing the attempt on Leon Trotsky, then living in Mexico. In 1960 he was arrested until 1964 and jailed for organizing the student uprisings in Mexico City.

In 1950 Siqueiros added to the number of his paintings mosaics on the facades of buildings campus and monumental oil paintings to the hospital of La Rasa and Chapultepec Castle (all in Mexico City). Siqueiros died in Cuernavaca (Mexico) 6 January 1974.