Zapata

In 1924, Siqueiros co-founded "El Machete', a weekly paper launched by the Union of Technical Workers, Painters, and Sculptors and characterized by avant-garde illustrations and radical political commentary. "El Machete" published his first woodcuts, which anticipated his more significant printmaking period at the end of the decade, spurred by his introduction to lithography in New York. Siqueiros spent eight months in prison in 1930, on account of his activism and involvement with the Communist party; he was placed under house arrest the following year in the mountainous town of Taxco, where he produced a series of drawings that were converted into lithographs and printed by George C. Miller in New York. "Zapata", which belongs to a series of four lithographs, pays homage to the revolutionary general Emiliano Zapata, who organized armies of peasants and called for agrarian reform during the Mexican Revolution. The scenery surrounding the equestrian figure resembles the spectral vista of Siqueiros’ painting, "Landscape (Taxco)", from the same year.

Text credit: Produced in collaboration with the University of Maryland Department of Art History & Archaeology and Patricia Ortega-Miranda.