They claim the work of María Izquierdo canceled by Rivera, Orozco and Siqueiros

Between walls painted by Diego Rivera and David Alfaro Siqueiros, in the heart of the living museum of muralism (MVM), two frescoes shine from who was once silenced by them: The music y The tragedyby María Izquierdo. These large format altarpieces painted to the fresco were their resounding response to the veto that prevented him from becoming the first woman to make a mural in a public building in the country.

The pieces are exhibited in the Carlos Mérida room, as part of the exhibition Muralism in educational spaces. A sample that opens new readings about the expansion of muralism beyond the great palaces and that claims the presence of women in a movement that narrated a long time from the male brush.

Originally from San Juan de los Lagos, Jalisco, María Izquierdo (1902-1955) was one of the first Mexican artists to have an international career. Easel painter, watercolorist, muralist, art critic and critical voice of the muralist monopoly, drew his way from a young age.

He married at age 15, had three children, divorced, and in 1928 he entered the National School of Fine Arts, where she was a student of Germán Gedovius and Manuel Toussaint. There, his then director, Diego Rivera, was impressed with his work and supported her to carry out her first individual exhibition in the Modern Art Gallery of the National Theater, today Palace of Fine Arts.

At that time, Rivera praised Izquierdo for his acuity for drawing, the warm chromatic palette he used and the dominance of plastic matter.

His work traveled to New York in 1930 to expose himself at Art Center, where he was discovered by the curator René D’Arnoncourt, who later included it in the famous show Mexican Arts of the Metropolitan Museum. Among the fans of his work, said Antonin Artaud, French poet and playwright, who considered his painting a door to the indigenous soul.

However, the breakdown point in his career came in 1945, when the government of the Federal District department commissioned him to paint the staircase of the old town hall palace. He was going to be the first woman to do it, but Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiros protested, arguing that he did not have the technique to do the job, so the contract was canceled.

María Izquierdo was not silent and decided to protest: she published letters, complaints and articles, including one where she called monopoly to the dominant triad. But his most forceful response was the creation of two transportable murals: The music y The tragedywhich he presented in 1946 to demonstrate his capacity.

However, at that time they were not bought and had to donate them to the Basilica of San Juan de los Lagos, in their homeland. Years later they were restored and put in protection of the Faculty of Law of the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

Today the MVM recovers them so that the public knows the talent and teson of the left, we invite you to not miss this exhibitionsaid a The day Rosario Molina, Deputy Director of Diffusion and Digital Contents of the MVM.

Despite that veto, Izquierdo never stopped painting, his easel work grew in thematic depth and technical maturity. Among his pieces, they stand out Self -portrait (1943), The green glass (1944) y The Earth (1945). He also had an evolution as an art critic and was the author of texts such as the Letter to the women of Mexicoin which he invited his readers to assume a responsible emancipation, without inferiority complexes and with equal awareness.

In the MVM his figure is not alone, since in an effort to make visible women close to the muralist movement, the enclosure has appointed various spaces with female references: the bookstore of the Economic Culture Fund is called Tina ModeTti; The Children’s Reading Room, Luz Jiménez, and the Library, Aurora Reyes, who is considered the first Mexican muralist.

But it is María Izquierdo who, with this exhibition, returns to occupy her place among the walls that were once denied. From the part of the muralist complex, which was previously customs, its frescoes speak for themselves.