4 hours ago
A long-neglected 1930s mural in Mexico that warns about the rise of fascism has been revealed and restored – just as some historians say the world faces that threat once more.
The mural, which is titled The Struggle Against Terrorism, covers a 40ft wall in a colonial courtyard in Morelia, Michoacán, and depicts a history of persecution and resistance from biblical times to the modern day.
Giant, looming figures stride across a wall covered with allusions to the life of Jesus, the Spanish Inquisition and the Ku Klux Klan, alongside Nazi and Communist symbols, and tools of torture.
After years of work to restore its original visual power, the mural will be unveiled again on Friday.
Painted in 1934, it was the first major commission for Philip Guston and Reuben Kadish, two artists born to Jewish immigrants in the US and living in Los Angeles at a time of political tumult.
“The world was changing,” said Sally Radic, executive director of the Philip Guston Foundation. “Fascism was coming in; the Ku Klux Klan was in Los Angeles.”
Just how two 21-year-old Americans – both of whom went on to become renowned artists – ended up painting a mural in a small Mexican city is unclear, though it seems they were encouraged to go to Mexico by David Alfaro Siqueiros, a pioneer of Mexican muralism.
After the Mexican revolution (1910-20), artists such as Siqueiros and Diego Rivera, who was married to Frida Kahlo, sought to tell the national story to a largely illiterate population by painting it in an epic form on public walls and buildings.
In Morelia, Gustavo Corona, the university rector, wanted to turn the city into “the Florence of Mexico” by inviting artists to paint murals – including throughout the 18th century colonial building that then housed the university, said Radic.
“And [Guston and Kadish] jumped at the opportunity to do whatever they wanted with this 1,000 sq ft wall,” she added.
They spent six months in Morelia, but scarcely anything is known about their time there. There are a few photos of the artists at work or posing in front of the completed mural, but almost nothing in the way of diaries or letters.
And soon after its completion, the mural was hidden, and almost forgotten.
In the 1940s, the manager of the building that housed the mural, by then a museum, began to covet a painting owned by the church, which depicts the transfer of enclosed nuns from one convent to another.
“Supposedly, the director wanted the painting in the museum, but the church said no,” said Radic. “Finally, they said he could have it – but only if he covered up the mural, because it had nude female figures and a cross that’s upside down. And so they did.”
Thirty years later, the mural was rediscovered by “basically by accident” while they were doing some maintenance. “They realised that there was a false wall,” said Radic. “And when they opened it up, they realised they had this mural there.”
By then it was in poor shape: damaged by humidity, covered in grime. “But the fact it was covered up so many years may actually have helped preserve it,” said Radic.
It took two years to repair the damage and revive the original colours.
Of all the murals in Mexico, Radic reckons this one might be unique. It is in a provincial Mexican city and uses a Mexican form, but is filled with international symbolism.
Meanwhile the theme is universal – and perhaps timeless.
By chance, the restored mural is being unveiled just as some fear a resurgence of fascism.
“Sometimes, the stars align. And, you know, 90 years later, it’s basically the same situation,” said Radic, before adding: “But that depends upon your political viewpoint.”
