Though he may be the one whom most people remember, Diego Rivera was not the only illustrious member of the Mexican Mural Movement of the 1920s. José Clemente Orozco was another of the founding triad. According to Mamie Spiegel, a Woodstock-based artist who winters in San Miguel de Allende in Mexico, the lesser-known David Siqueiros was “the youngest, the most politically zealous and undoubtedly the most radical of the three painters,” having become soldier in the Mexican Revolution at the age of 16. Living for a time in the US in the 1930s (before being deported as a Communist), Siqueiros became a mentor to later Woodstock resident Philip Guston and set up the Experimental Workshop on 14th Street in New York City where Jackson Pollock would first cultivate his paint-pouring technique.
This Friday, August 14 at 6 p.m., Spiegel will give a lecture and slide presentation on the muralist at the Kleinert/James Center for the Arts, titled “David (Siqueiros) and Goliath” in reference to Siqueiros’ lifelong battle against the forces of injustice. The talk is free to the public. The Kleinert is located at 36 Tinker Street in Woodstock.
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