Tag Archives: frescoes

Ringing the Bells: San Miguel Arcangel Church, San Miguel del Valle, Oaxaca

San Miguel del Valle, Oaxaca, calls to me. Perhaps because it is hidden — escondido — beyond Santa Ana del Valle and Diaz Ordaz, tucked into the fold of the foothills leading to the Sierra Juarez on the way to the eco-tourism center of Cuajilomoyas.

Stepping up into the church patio

Illuminated Saint Michael on the altar

There are dazzling, artful aprons there that talented women embroider with birds, flowers, animals, and plants in a cascade of color. Wearable art! It is all from their imagination. There is no design that shows up twice. You can find them from this distinctive dress each Sunday at the Tlacolula Market, a 15-minute trip from the village.

Welcome to San Miguel Arcangel

Merry modeling an artful apron

I went back last week with my young friend Lupita. She rarely leaves Teotitlan del Valle and its a big world out there along the Pan American Highway MEX 190. We were lucky. When we arrived, the gates to the church patio were open to me for the first time. This was my fourth visit in recent weeks.

Watch the video!

Inside, I said hello to the man who was doing his church volunteer service. I asked him if we could step up to the altar and then enter an anteroom where there were reliquaries and antique treasures from centuries past. He welcomed us. Invited us in, told us to take our time.

Antonio Miguel invites into the anteroom for a look around

Ancient frescoes were painted on lime plastered walls. Deeply carved wood embellished Zegache-style mirrors. A broken clay figure perched under a gilded miniature pergola. Priestly robes hung in a glass case. It was a feeling of old, mystical, medieval. Without restoration, the space felt even more sacred.

Hand painted frescoes of saints adorn walls

Clay figure perched under gilded pergola

I explained to Lupita that it was her people, the Zapotecs, who were conscripted to become stone masons, wood carvers and painters, doing the labor to decorate these buildings of the new religion after the conquest. This was like being inside a fortress, sturdy, solid, everlasting.

Frame of the antique organ

Ascending through the turret, a rest stop for a view

Antonio asked if we wanted to see the antique organ from the same era as the one in Tlacochahuaya. We would have to climb the narrow winding stairs up the turret to the second floor. He went first. The organ was a wood frame with no musical parts. It must have been splendid once.

From the organ balcony, looking into the sanctuary

Lupita makes her way down steep stone steps. I follow her.

He kept looking at his watch. I have to go ring the bells, he said. It’s noon. So we scaled another round of steps to the top of the bell tower, greeted with spectacular views.

Rope bell is suspended with twisted cowhide

Zapotec symbols decorate church support beams

Antonio rang the bells announcing to the entire village it was twelve o’clock. Then he gave me an interview. He lived in Pomona, California, working as a landscaper for 10 years. He is happy to be home in his village!

An inscription, from 1560?

The Virgin of Guadalupe is everywhere, the patron saint of Mexico

 

 

Pablo O’Higgins and Mexican Muralism: A Weekend in Mexico City

Mexico City is Number One on the New York Times recommended travel destinations. CDMX has it all, they say, and I agree. This is probably the tenth time I’ve been here in the last two years for the art history study tour I organize, Looking for Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera.

New Dates: June 30-July 3, 2016 AND September 1-4, 2016  send me an email  norma.schafer@icloud.com

Pablo O'Higgins self-portrait, and portrait of his wife Maria in background

Pablo O’Higgins self-portrait, and portrait of his wife Maria in background

I always stay in the Centro Historico around the Zocalo where it is safe, pedestrian friendly, filled with art and archeology treasures and amazing restaurants with innovative menus. First-time visitors say they join me on this study tour as an orientation to one of the biggest cities in the world.

O’Higgins mural at Abelardo Rodriguez Market

Important and well-known CDMX destinations are the Diego Rivera murals in the Palacio Nacional and Bellas Artes. Few dig deeper into the murals at the Secretariat de Educacion Publico (SEP) and the Mercado Abelardo Rodriguez.

Figure, Pablo O'Higgins mural, Abelardo Rodriguez Market

Figure, Pablo O’Higgins mural, Abelardo Rodriguez Market

The Rivera murals at SEP were among his first after returning from European art study for over ten years. These were painted between 1923 and 1928.  Now famous, Rivera attracted a cadre of student assistants to sketch and paint.

Detail, mural sketch, with Francisco I. Madero and Miguel Hidalgo

Detail, mural sketch, with Francisco I. Madero and Miguel Hidalgo

One of these was Pablo O’Higgins, a 20-year old Utah-born American artist who was attracted to the ideals of the Mexican Revolution and migrated to Mexico City in 1924 where he became a student of Diego Rivera.

O'Higgins painted wood cabinet fronts for the Emiliano Zapata School

O’Higgins painted wood cabinet fronts for the Emiliano Zapata School

We search out O’Higgins frescoes at the Abelardo Rodriguez market. They are well-hidden in a not-so-easy-to-access patio in a colonial building next to the market. Rivera was offered a commission to paint the murals in this then new city market built in 1934. Too busy with other work, he proposed that his students do the project and agreed to supervise it.

O’Higgins was also a printmaker and co-founder of Taller de Graphica Popular, an artists’ print collective that created sociopolitical art to renounce fascism and imperialism. Mexico has a deep relationship with the graphic arts and it’s alive and well in both Mexico City and Oaxaca, today.

There are four large O’Higgins mural panels in this area that deserve attention, which is why it is included in our art history study tour. As a disciple of Rivera, O’Higgins learned from the master’s style and then created his own. Rivera said if he ever had a son, he wanted him to be like Pablo O’Higgins.

Mural detail, Abelardo Rodriguez Market

Mural detail, An Open Press, Abelardo Rodriguez Market

Today, while visiting the Museo Mural de Diego Rivera that holds the fresco Dream of a Sunday Afternoon in the Alameda, we were surprised with a special exhibition of Pablo O’Higgins’ work there, too. The second floor of the exhibition features a commentary about his work by art historians, fellow artists, and his wife Maria.

O'Higgins mural sketch

O’Higgins mural sketch

As one of Rivera’s top disciples, it’s fitting that O’Higgins is recognized with an exhibition in the Rivera mural museum. Perhaps the government will find a way to begin preserving his murals and those of the other students’ work at the market and other locations around the city.

Mural over arched doorway, Abelardo Rodriguez Market

Mural over arched doorway, Abelardo Rodriguez Market, corn and huitlacoche

Who painted at the Abelardo Rodriguez Market?

Market fresco themes were health, nutrition, quality organic food produced by labor recognized for their contributions to physical well-being, fair compensation and working conditions.

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Diego Rivera Murals at Secretariat of Public Education (SEP), Mexico City

Diego Rivera, Mexico’s famed muralist, returned there from Europe in 1921 at the invitation of Jose Vasconcelos, Mexico’s Secretary of Public Education, to paint three floors of murals in the national headquarters that was once a Franciscan convent.

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From 1923 to 1928, Rivera worked in the building with assistants to create 125 panels that would help define a new nation after the 1910 revolution. Over a million people died in the 10 year conflict that most historians now call a civil war.

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The idea for the murals was to coalesce the various post-war factions and shape a national identity that would recognize its indigenous roots, valuing the work of the peasant, the common man. At the heart of the message was that better education and health care would lift up the nation.

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On the first floor, mural topics focus on Mexican festivals and labor. The second floor concentrates on science and technology. On the third floor, Rivera translated the populist approach to government to reflect his own ideology as a communist.

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The themes of the worker, the enlisted soldier and the peasant are repeated throughout. Here we see Frida Kahlo depicted as a revolutionary heroine.  Ribbons with heroic revolutionary messages connect the frescoes.

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The last of the murals, painted in 1928 are a portend to the 1929 stock market crash. They depict the greed of industrialists and the church, the debauchery and waste, and the widening distance between the wealthy and poor, the cynical and the hopeful.

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The murals undergo constant restoration. A group of full-time art restorer-fresco painters are employed to prevent deterioration. There is usually always a team of two or more people, paint brush in hand, high up on scaffolding.

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They told us that they paint in exactly the same brush strokes as Rivera, but like any building restoration of antiquities, there is always a telltale mark that indicates it is not the original.

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Our group of six, plus our art historian Valeria, immersed ourselves into this intensive study tour day that started at 9:30 a.m. and ended after lunch. I counted almost 13,000 steps as we walked around the historic center of Mexico City, visiting SEP and two other mural locations.

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If you are interested in joining us for a comprehensive, intensive four-day art history tour in Mexico City this winter or spring, please contact me.

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These photos were all taken with my Nikon D7000 camera and the Nikkor 50mm 1:1.8G lens. This is a prime lens (no zoom), so I got lots of close ups and had to move my feet to get perspective. I prefer total control over my photos so I use the manual setting with autofocus, choosing aperture and shutter speed.

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I’m having trouble learning the new Olympus mirrorless, so set it aside for a while. It works really well in automatic. I can’t seem to get it to work with manual setting.

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Frida Kahlo Mania: See Her in the USA

Our iconic Frida Kahlo, her life, art, clothing, jewelry, pain, sorrow, tragedies, affairs and everything else worth examining about her is featured in 2015 exhibitions around the United States of America.

Frida Kahlo: Art, Garden, Life is an exhibition at the New York Botanical Garden featuring the plants that Frida loved to wear and had in her Mexico City gardens.

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Several famous paintings shown include one of Luther Burbank who she and Rivera admired, and “Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird” (1940), a parting gift to Nicholas Muray, Hungarian photographer and lover.

The Burbank portrait, which I have seen many times as part of our Looking for Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera in Mexico City: Art History Tour, is on loan from the Dolores Olmedo Museum.

The blockbuster Detroit Institute of Arts exhibition featuring Kahlo and Rivera will run until July 12, 2015. I know many who have bought plane tickets to go see it.

The New Yorker magazine says, “The exhibition is nothing if not an event, which is fitting, given how much of a moment Kahlo is having this year (see The Striking Absence in the Detroit Intitute of Arts’s Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo Blockbuster and Frida Kahlo Love Letters Sell For $137,000—That’s Over $1,000 Per Page!).

For about the same price to travel to Detroit or New York, why not come to Mexico City for our art history tour that will take you to Frida’s paintings, Diego’s murals, Casa Azul and the Dolores Olmedo Museum where you can see it all (except those pieces out on loan!)

We have offered Looking for Frida Kahlo + Diego Rivera in Mexico City: Art History Tour multiple times a year since early 2014 to rave reviews.

Plus, you will see the amazing gardens and the endangered xoloitzcuintle, too.

 

Diego Rivera Murals in San Francisco: Critical Guide for Visiting

There are three Diego Rivera frescoes in San Francisco, California. To get in to see them all is not easy, but it is well worth the effort. It was an incredible treat to be able to see these frescoes up close and personal. A word of advice: it’s very important to plan and confirm your visits in advance.

In Mexico, Rivera intended his murals to be accessible to the public. That was an important social and political premise of the Mexican Muralist Movement — art for and of the people. All are filled with consistent Rivera themes: the worker, the common soldier, the peasant farmer and industry. These murals mirror those in Mexico City of the same era (like Man, Controller of the Universe) and I recognize similar scenes and characters.

Looking for Diego Rivera + Frida Kahlo in Mexico City: 3-Day Art History Tour

These are the three murals in order of their creation:

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Pan American Unity, left half

Pan American Unity, left half

Pan American Unity, right side

Pan American Unity, right half

These are the three murals in order of accessibility:

San Francisco Art Institute

The most accessible fresco is The Making of a Fresco Showing the Building of a City at the San Francisco Art Institute, open 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. This is a private, degree-granting university. Doors are open to students and to the public Monday through Friday. Check for weekend hours. The challenge is to find parking around the steep Cow Hollow hills. But if you are in a taxi or take UBER, no worries.

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The mural is at the end of a student exhibition gallery space on the main level to the left of the entry courtyard. We followed good directional signs to get there. Once inside, the floor to ceiling wall art dominates the space.

This is a painting within a painting. Rivera included himself (back to viewer, with his ample frame centered on the scaffolding) with helpers making a fresco. His patrons who financed the project are part of the set. It reminds me of the caricature portraits we see at the Palacio Nacional depicting the history of Mexico that Rivera started in 1929 at about the same time. In fact, this Mexico City mural was not completed for another ten years because of commissions like this one in the U.S. It is very Rivera with a bold figures, the central one wearing a red star. You will see a lot of similarities here if you are familiar with his style.

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There is a small donation box in front suggesting support for mural preservation. We didn’t find hand-out information, art history notes or guestbook. The best descriptions are online, which I suggest you read before visiting.

800 Chestnut Street (between Jones and Leavenworth), San Francisco, CA 94133. Phone: 415-771-7020

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Looking for Diego Rivera + Frida Kahlo in Mexico City: 3-Day Art History Tour

City College of San Francisco

Located in the Sunset on a hill overlooking the Pacific Ocean, City College of San Francisco boasts a comprehensive historical reference mural to The Marriage of the Artistic Expression of the North and the South on this Continent.  Informally called The Pan American Unity Mural, Rivera painted it in 1940 for the Golden Gate International Exposition on Treasure Island.

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He was invited by civic and arts leaders to participate in the Exposition’s “Art in Action” program, joining other prominent artists. Fair-goers watched while Rivera and his assistants painted!

Frida Kahlo, who marries Rivera for the second time in San Francisco in 1940, stands front and center, while Rivera, his back to the viewer, holds the hand of actress Paulette Goddard. This mural is the most political of the three San Francisco pieces and is parallel in style to the Palacio Nacional mural of the same era, each featuring the founding fathers of Mexico and the USA.

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Because of state funding cuts, visiting hours at SFCC are limited. Please consult the website to see when there is a volunteer faculty/staff member scheduled to open the Diego Rivera Theatre where the mural can be seen.

This important mural is housed in a very cramped space. I was told that for years the intent has been to build a larger gallery to view it. But … the college depends on designated private gifts to realize project goals. A small donation box sits in front of the mural. We gave more than requested for a beautiful, thorough art history brochure with color photo. Thanks to the college for providing this!

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Notes: Be sure to walk upstairs to a small balcony (don’t trip, it’s also used for storage) to get the most expansive view of the mural. From above, the center view is obstructed by a large carved wood sculpture that obstructs the experience. Free street parking available.

50 Phelan Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94112. Viewing Hours are posted on the website. Phone only goes to voicemail: 415-452-5313

The City Club of San Francisco

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Rivera asked Olympic swimmer Helen Willis to model.

Our experience at The City Club of San Francisco, an exclusive, members only space on the 10th floor of the former Pacific Stock Exchange, proved that you can’t always trust what you read online, even from USA Today. We read the mural was open for viewing from 3 to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday. Not exactly true.

We found out the hard way that you can only gain entrance to see the mural if you make an appointment in advance with a City Club staffer. Denied entry and after repeated phone calls from the lobby that all went to voicemail, we finally connected with a live person. When I introduced myself and requested a visit, I got a harsh scolding about not having an appointment, a tirade about this being a private club, a rant about not to trust internet information, then a reluctant agreement to allow us upstairs to see the mural for ten minutes. We were shocked by staff behavior because of the club’s great reputation for hospitality.

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As we emerged from the elevator, the staffer hid a candy jar from her desktop where she sits sentry on the landing in front of the mural. Seems other riffraff before us dipped into the candy dish and she is keeping a watchful eye.

Lobby, Stock Exchange Tower Building, Art Deco

Lobby, Stock Exchange Tower

The staffer we met is definitely the gatekeeper. You need to call in advance, make an appointment and purr. I wouldn’t say you know me.

Do you think Diego would roll over in his grave?

Stock Exchange Tower, 155 Sansome Street, San Francisco, CA 94104. Phone: 415-362-2480

 

 

Recommendations:

  • Call in advance to each site to confirm opening times.
  • Make an advance appointment directly with The City Club to see the mural there.
  • Educate yourself. Read about each mural in advance since only the City College of San Francisco may publish an art history description.
  • Devote a half-day for visiting the three murals. They are in different parts of the city and traffic can be difficult.
  • Be ready to pay at least $16 per hour to park near the City Club if you are driving a car. Park farther out and use UBER.
  • Be prepared to be disappointed. You may not get in to all venues.
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View from the rooftop terrace, SF Art Institute with Alcatraz.

Looking for Frida Kahlo + Diego Rivera in Mexico City: Art History Tour

Suggested Visiting Route:

  • 11 a.m. — San Francisco Art Institute (open 9 a.m.-7 p.m.)
  • 1 p.m. — City College of San Francisco (open 1-3 p.m.)
  • 3:30 p.m. City Club of San Francisco (by appointment only — call 415-362-2480 well in advance. Purr when you talk to staff.)

A BIG thank you to East Bay friend Mary Ann for organizing this day and driving to all parts of The City.

Coit Tower from the SF Art Institute rooftop terrace.

Coit Tower from the SF Art Institute rooftop terrace. See the Bay Bridge?