La huida (The Escape)

A lifelong Communist, Siqueiros was a skeptic of the Mexican government and agitated against it, taking the side of the oppressed. In this lithograph, Siqueiros shows a mother fearing for her child’s life, perhaps due to political tumult or to the abuses of the wealthy hacenderos. The expressive streaks of red and blue that describe her traditional dress depict the urgency of her departure as she runs toward safety. She clutches her child tightly in her arms as she races through a dry, arid landscape. The lithograph recalls the panel of the same name that Siqueiros included in his monumental Polyforum mural, The March of Humanity, commissioned in the 1960s.

Text credit: Produced in collaboration with the University of Maryland Department of Art History & Archaeology and by Ankita Sahoo