Tag Archives: Pablo O’Higgins

Mexican Muralists Envision New Nation Post-Revolution

Posted on Thursday, October 24, 2019 | 3 comments

Art history is a fascinating way to learn more about Mexico and the figures who shaped the nation — political, social, cultural. Through their interpretation of characters and events, the famed muralists — Diego Rivera, David Alfara Siqueiros, and Jose Clemente Orozco — gave definition to a new nation seeking to redefine itself post-1920 Revolution. We call this Mexican Muralism.

Mexico City skyline with active volcano Popocatepetl in distance

Marion Greenwood mural, circa 1934, Abelardo Rodriguez Market

While I’m now in Teotitlan del Valle, Oaxaca, I’m reflecting back to last weekend in Mexico City, where, in collaboration with my art historian friend Valeria, we led a group of nine participants from the USA through the historic center. Here is where a turbulent history is interpreted through art. We started on Thursday evening and ended on Sunday afternoon, packing it in, walking miles each day, absorbing a fascinating evolution.

Orozco’s bleak worldview, Colegio San Ildefonso

Mexico is defined by many internal and external forces, mostly her on-going desire to reconcile the Spanish conquest with her indigenous origins. Embracing Mestizaje — blending indigenous roots with conquerors, occupiers and immigrants, is what makes Mexico unique among nations, and very different from her northern neighbors.

At Colegio San Ildefonso, Orozco mural *Cortes and La Malinche*

Rivera’s idyllic Aztec landscape, another worldview

Rivera, who sat out the 1910-1920 Revolution, painting and making a name for himself in Europe, returned to Mexico City in 1921. Jose Vasconcelos, the first minister of education, recruited Rivera to paint the murals at the Secretariat de Educacion Publica (SEP), his first commission.

Unfinished Siquieros mural, SEP — newest building near Plaza Santa Domingo

The murals of Rivera, Orozco and Siquieros are commentaries on national identity, statehood, oppression and power. The Rivera murals at SEP in particular were part of a national communication plan (aka propaganda) to embrace native culture and arts. Critics say Rivera’s murals are romantic and idealistic. His contemporaries, survivors of the Revolution, painted a more hopeless, violent vision, expressing their belief that the past must be destroyed in order to create a new order.

Orozco’s interpretation of death of the old order

By Sunday, we move more deeply into the life and times of Frida Kahlo with a visit to Casa Azul, a stark contrast to the muralists.

Frida Kahlo was born in 1907, the year Rivera went to Europe as a young man. During her lifetime she was dwarfed literally and figuratively by her imposing husband. It wasn’t until after her death in 1954 at age 47, that she became the iconic figure she is today — representing women’s strength, pain, fortitude, perseverance, endurance.

1953 self-portrait, injured areas in 1925 accident, 22 lifetime operations

We revere her because her art is self-expression. She painted emotion and the internal life. She was a participant, not an observer. She hid her deformities under extraordinary handmade Mexican clothing — popularizing the style, corseted beneath to hold her injured spine erect. Andre Breton called her surrealist. We call her survivor.

*Who needs feet when I have wings to fly*

Juan O’Gorman designed Frida’s Casa Azul studio, a window on the garden

Our art history tour weaves the relationship between Diego and Frida with the times in which they lived and worked. We also examine the politics of Socialism and Communism in Mexico, how the Rivera’s gave sanctuary to Leon Trotsky, the idealism of young American artists like Pablo O’Higgins, Isamu Noguchi, and the Greenwood sisters — Marion and Grace, who were drawn to the movement. We see their deteriorating murals in an obscure market blocks from the city center.

Murals behind the chicharrones, Abelardo Rodriguez Market

Water-damaged, deteriorating Pablo O’Higgins mural, Mexico City

Frida’s last signed painting before she died, 1954

We understand Mexico more now, how the creative stream of artistic energy here continues to express social and political inequalities, injustices, and discontent.

Manuel Rodriguez Lozano 1945 mural, *The Holocaust*, at Downtown

Lunch break at Restaurant El Mayor, poached salmon with fresh corn salsa

Here in Oaxaca, our beloved Maestro Francisco Toledo, carried the mantle of social justice art until he died in September 2019. Young graphic artists follow in the footsteps of the masters, use wood, linoleum block and metal plates to carve out images of truth to power. Mexico offers creative opportunity to any and all who choose to express themselves.

Beneath Metropolitan Cathedral lies unexcavated Aztec city

Note: If you put together a group of 5-6 people, I am happy to organize this experience over a long weekend in Mexico City.

Diego Rivera’s experiment with Cubism, 1910-1920

Sculptor/muralist Isamu Naguchi is ardent anti-Fascist, installation
at Abelardo Rodriguez Market

3 Comments

Posted in Oaxaca Mexico art and culture

Tagged art history, Frida Kahlo, Isamu Noguchi, Mexico, muralism, Orozco, Pablo O'Higgins, political art, Rivera, Secretariat de Educacion Publica, SEP murals, Siqueiros, Trotsky

At the Dolores Olmedo Museum: Pablo O’Higgins Prints

Posted on Tuesday, April 5, 2016 | 2 comments

The entire Frida Kahlo permanent exhibition of paintings at the Dolores Olmedo Patiño Museum in Mexico City is on loan to the Faberge Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia, until April 30.

We discovered this last Sunday as we made our afternoon visit as part of the Looking for Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera Art History Tour. Disappointed? Yes.

But, the Rivera galleries were intact and we were treated to a special exhibition of Pablo O’Higgins lithographs in the space that usually holds Frida’s work.

Pablo O’Higgins, one of Diego Rivera’s most talented disciples, participated in the making of Rivera murals in the public education building, and then painted his own at the Abelardo Rodriguez market.

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He is an enigma to many. He changed his name from Paul Higgins Stevenson (there is even controversy about his real original name) when he arrived in Mexico at age 20 to obscure his upper-class family origins and identity. His father, a conservative lawyer participated in the death sentence of miner and labor organizer Joe Hill.

Writer Susan Vogel addresses the question of his identity in her book, Becoming Pablo O’Higgins: How an Anglo-American Artist from Utah Became a Mexican Muralist.

The character of O’Higgins is fascinating if not fully articulated. Here is a blonde, blue-eyed giant among the Mexican working-class, painting and drawing powerful images of average daily life.

This exhibition, combined with the one at the Museo de Mural de Diego Rivera, shows the skill and directness of O’Higgins’ work. Real. Intense. Honest. Compelling.

So, ultimately, we were not disappointed. The visit was enhanced by this special exhibition.

I’m in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, now, and will be here for the month of April, taking care of legal and health care check-ups. (Don’t worry, all is well.)

On Friday evening, my artist friend, Hollie Taylor Novak, is opening an exhibition at the North Carolina Craft Gallery featuring her Frida Tributes. I’ll be writing more about that later.

Saludos from the state that needs to elect a new governor!

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Posted in Cultural Commentary, Mexico City, Travel & Tourism, Workshops and Retreats

Tagged Abelardo Rodriguez market, art, Diego Rivera, fresco, history, lithographs, Mexican Muralism, Mexico, Mexico City, muralists, Pablo O'Higgins, painting, politics, prints, study tour

2016 Summer-Fall: Looking for Frida Kahlo + Diego Rivera–Mexico City Art History Study Tour

Posted on Monday, April 4, 2016 | Comments Off

Come to Mexico City to explore the lives of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera through their art. This is in-depth art history education at its best! We offer you a narrated cultural immersion that you can miss if you visit on your own. Our expert guide is a bi-lingual Mexican art historian! Come solo, with a partner or friend. Norma Schafer participates in all programs. Small group size limited to 8 people for quality experience. We don’t rush you, either.

Summer and Fall 2016 Schedule: Take Your Holiday Weekend Here!

June 30-July 3, 2016
September 1-4, 2016

We can customized dates for groups of 4 or more people. Contact me.

Arrive and meet for a group dinner on Thursday at 7 p.m. We will have a long weekend — three full days — to learn about Diego Rivera‘s stunning Mexico City murals, visit Casa Azul where Diego and Frida Kahlo lived, and see the largest private collection of their work at the Dolores Olmedo Museum.

Man Controller of the Universe mimics destroyed Rockefeller Center mural

Through their eyes, you will better understand Mexico’s political, cultural and social history, and their personal lives together. Theirs is a story of Mexico’s development as a post-revolutionary modern nation.

You will meet their contemporaries, muralists Jose Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Sequieros, as you compare and contrast their collective work.
We introduce you to student muralists of the time: Pablo O’Higgins, Marion Greenwood, Isamu Noguchi and others.

If you want to register, send me an email. Tell me the dates you prefer!

A few little nips — Frida painted this after Rivera’s affair with her sister

This is an incredible experience! The Rivera murals at the Secretary of Public Education building were like nothing I expected. The scale, the intensity, the variation of themes, the continual flow of connecting vignettes – just mind blowing! It isn’t just an art tour. It is an intense immersion into the beginning of an art movement, a cultural movement, and a culmination of historic events that come alive. — Christine Bouton, North Carolina

Our expert guide is a noted art historian who holds a master’s degree in art history who is about to embark on a doctoral program. She shares her passion for the Mexican Muralists, narrates the expedition, and leads us through these spaces to give you the most meaningful educational experience:

Palacio Nacional
Palacio Bellas Artes
Museo de Mural de Diego Rivera
Secretaria de Educacion Publica (SEP)
San Ildefonso National Preparatory School
Abelardo Rodriguez market
Casa Azul — the home of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo
Museo Dolores Olmedo Patiño

Yes, you can visit these places independently. But it’s not likely you will get the same in-depth knowledge, insights, and perspectives if you do.

She called him toad. He was 20 years older. They were passionate about life, politics, each other. They shaped the world of modern art and she became an icon in her own right, creating an independent identity that serves as a role model for women. They were twice married and unfaithful, the subjects of books and film, and art retrospectives around the world.

Rivera’s Dream of a Sunday Afternoon in the Alameda Park

Casa Azul — Museo Frida Kahlo is a tribute to the life of both artists. Museo Dolores Olmedo Patiño holds the largest private collection of Frida and Diego paintings in the world. Lola Olmedo was a benefactor and life-long personal friend of Rivera who became executor of his estate that included Casa Azul.

Rivera’s mural at the Palacio Nacional (National Palace) covers detailed Mexican history, from pre-Hispanic America to the Spanish Conquest through industrialization, including the French and U.S. invasions, from 1521 to 1930.

David Alfaro Sequieros, Rivera rival; Palacio Bellas Artes mural

Plus, you will have lots of options for independent exploration: shop for outstanding folk art, and eat at local markets, historic and fine contemporary and traditional restaurants! Visit the Anthropology Museum.

Lunch at the gourmet market, Mercado San Juan

See our reviews on Trip Advisor!

Base Trip Includes:

welcome dinner at renown restaurant Azul Historico
guided discussions by an expert, bilingual art historian educated at UNAM and graduate Southern Methodist University
introduction to Norma’s favorite restaurants (meals not included) and folk art galleries
transportation to Casa Azul and Dolores Olmedo Museum
complete travel packet and readings sent in advance via email

Preliminary Itinerary

Day 1, Thursday: Meet for group dinner at 7 p.m. at Restaurant Azul Historico near the Zocalo. Dinner included in your tour cost. Overnight in Mexico City.
Day 2, Friday: guided visit to SEP, Colegio de San Idlefonso, where Diego met Frida, and the Abelardo Rodriguez market where Rivera’s students, including Pablo O’Higgins, painted. Lunch and dinner on your own. Overnight in Mexico City.

One of 125 Rivera painted at SEP, 1923-28, this one mocking the bourgeoisie

Day 3, Saturday: guided visit to Palacio Bellas Artes and Museo Mural de Diego Rivera. Optional folk art shopping or visit to Anthropology Museum. Lunch and dinner on your own. Overnight in Mexico City.

Palacio Bellas Artes built during the 30-year Porfirio Diaz presidency

Day 4, Sunday: guided visit to Casa Azul and Museo Dolores Olmedo Patiño. Includes transportation. Lunch on your own. Overnight in Mexico City.
Depart on Monday for home.

The oldest street in Mexico next to the Palacio Nacional looks like Europe

Be ready to WALK and then, walk some more! Don’t forget to bring an extra suitcase to pack treasures you pick up along the way.

Base Cost: $895 USD per person double occupancy, includes 4 nights lodging.
Single Supplement offered: $1,195 USD

We will stay at a comfortable bed and breakfast inn or hotel located in the historic center of Mexico City with breakfast included.

Tiffany ceiling, El Gran Hotel Ciudad de Mexico

What the base cost does not include:

meals except noted in itinerary, alcoholic beverages
transportation to/from Mexico City
museum admission fees
mandatory international health/accident insurance
tips for hotels, meals and other services

Base Cost: $895. USD per person double occupancy, includes B&B lodging with breakfast, private bath for four nights, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Otherwise, all exceptions noted above apply.

Single Supplement: $1,195. USD for private room and bath.

Optional: Arrive early and/or stay later to discover Mexico City and her incredible museums and restaurants. We will give you a list of recommendations to explore on your own.

Katharsis, 1934 mural by Jose Clemente Orozco, Palacio Bellas Artes

Reservations and Cancellations. A 50% deposit will guarantee your spot. The last payment for the balance is due 45 days before the program start date. Payment shall be made by PayPal. We will send you an itemized PayPal invoice.

Please understand that we make arrangements months in advance of the program. Deposits or payments in full are often required. If cancellation is necessary, please tell us in writing by email. After 45 days before the program starts, no refunds are possible. However, we will make every possible effort to fill your reserved space or you may send a substitute. If you cancel on or before the 45 day date, we will refund 50% of your deposit.

Frida died July 13, 1954, at age 47, soon after she painted these watermelons

Required–Travel Health/Accident Insurance: We require that you carry international accident/health/emergency evacuation insurance. Proof of insurance must be sent at least two weeks before departure. If you do not wish to do this, we ask you email a PDF of a signed and witnessed waiver of liability, holding harmless Norma Hawthorne Schafer and Oaxaca Cultural Navigator LLC. Unforeseen circumstances happen!

To register, email us at norma.schafer@icloud.com. We accept payment with PayPal only. Thank you.

Frida’s sketchbook & journal; notice the deformed leg from childhood polio.

This workshop is produced by Norma Schafer, Oaxaca Cultural Navigator LLC. We reserve the right to adjust the itinerary and substitute leaders without notice.

A note to Frida from Diego two years after her death … “you live in my heart.”

Paint brushes in Frida’s studio at Casa Azul, exactly as she left them

Comments Off on 2016 Summer-Fall: Looking for Frida Kahlo + Diego Rivera–Mexico City Art History Study Tour

Posted in Cultural Commentary, Mexico City, Photography, Travel & Tourism

Tagged art history, Ciudad de Mexico, class, communism and Mexico, Diego Rivera, Distrito Federal, Frida Kahlo, guided tour, Leon Trotsky, Mexican Muralists, Mexican Revolution, Mexico, murals, Pablo O'Higgins, politics, study, tour, tourism, travel

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

Posted on Saturday, April 2, 2016 | 6 comments

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

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

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

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

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, 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

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, corn and huitlacoche

Who painted at the Abelardo Rodriguez Market?

Pablo O’Higgins
Marion Greenwood
Grace Greenwood Ames
Isamu Noguchi
Antonio Pujol
Angel Bracho
Pedro Rendon
Ramon Alva Guadarrama
Raul Gamboa

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.

6 Comments

Posted in Mexico City, Travel & Tourism

Tagged 20th century Mexican art, Abelardo Rodriguez market, art, Diego Rivera, frescoes, history, Mexico, Mexico City, murals, Pablo O'Higgins, painting, political art, post-revolutionary art

Forgotten Murals of Abelardo Rodriguez Market, Mexico City

Posted on Saturday, April 11, 2015 | 1 comment

The fresco murals painted by Diego Rivera‘s disciples on the walls of the Abelardo Rodriguez Market in Mexico City are a historic art treasure at risk. Most on the first floor are deteriorating, peeling, fading, etched by attempts of graffiti at knife point, hidden by stalls, storage areas and obscured by dust. Yet, they are a must-see.

The disciples of Rivera came to Mexico City to learn from the master. Many were political idealists from the United States like Pablo O’Higgins who later became a Mexican citizen, the Greenwood Sisters — Marion and Grace, and Isamu Noguchi.

The murals are a backdrop to a bustling city market where vendors sell mostly everything from fresh fruit and vegetables, poultry, dairy products and household goods. There are comedors and juice stalls. Pull up a seat.

Be greeted by giggling pre-teen girls who are on vacation this week from school and are tasked with babysitting while their parents tend the stalls. Yes, they are on Facebook. And, yes, I shared this photo with them.

Pull up a seat to order a chicken taco or hot pozole. Most barely notice, if at all, the frescos that were painted in 1936. This was a time of political discontent, growing fascism, and the crisis of a worldwide economic depression.

Naguchi mural is a bas relief sculpture

Then as now, Mexico City was an international hub for artistic expression and the Big Three — Rivera, Siqueiros and Orozco attracted young artists who wanted to take part in the Mexican Muralist Movement, born from a strong tradition in the graphic arts and especially the work of Jose Guadalupe Posada.

Marion Greenwood paints the second floor stairwell at the back of the market

Today, we are on an art history quest, Looking for Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, accompanied by an art historian who knows her stuff!

Today, we went to the Abelardo Rodriguez Market, but not before first visiting the Secretaria de Educacion Publica (SEP) and Colegio de San Ildefonso, where we saw the earliest frescoes of Rivera, Siquieros and Orozco.

My friends Cindy and Chris are with me on this art history adventure. I stayed with Chris and her husband Jeff after my knee replacement surgery in North Carolina last November. This is Chris’ first trip to Mexico. Cindy came to Oaxaca seven years ago but has never been in Mexico City before. Today we walked almost 12,000 steps according to my FitBit.

The muralists took risks. Their work was political commentary and a call for change: better health care, equal rights for women, a fair wage for workers with better working conditions, elimination of exploitation and a social system that provides food and shelter for families. They foreshadowed World War II in their work.