Mexican Modern Art 1910 - 1950 (22)


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Source: WTL photograph© at the Special Exhibition of "Paint the Revolution: Mexican Modernism 1910 - 1950," at the Philadelphia Art Museum, December 13, 2016.
Image: "Airplane" (1931) by Juan O'Gorman. Fresco.
Comments: This fresco is one of the works alluded to in #21 that was submitted in the art competition in celebration of the opening of the Tolteca Cement Plant in Zapoltitic, Jalisco, Mexico. O'Gorman won a prize in this competition for showing the cement plant in the wider context of the community and the mountains in the upper background.

Here is photograph by Manuel Álvarez Bravo (1902-2002) that won the competition's grand prize. It is titled "Cement Triptych 2 (La Tolteca), from 1931:

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For another and later art work by O'Gorman in this series documenting Mexican Modernism 1910-1950, see: => #35.
Humanities Questions: (A) Reflect on the following information, which may help explain the seemingly strange title for this painting: In 1928, in a journal title Cemento, No. 21 (January 1928), p. 17, the author, Federico Sánchez Fogerty, says this: [cement is the most important modern discovery] "equivalent in its field to that of the automobile, the railroad, and airplane together in that of communications." (B) Review the three works (#20, #21, and #22), respectively, by Izquierdo, O'Gorman, and Álvarez Bravo, and tell which one you think is the most outstanding art work and why.


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