Promotional Information

This is a study of the reciprocal relationship between Mexican muralism and the three major Mexican museums--the Palace of Fine Arts, the National History Museum, and the National Anthropology Museum. Mary Coffey traces the transformation of Mexican muralism from a public art with radical social intentions to a form of state propaganda. There are three chapters, one for each museum, beginning in 1934 with the renewal of state patronage and ending in 1968 with the massacre at Tlatelolco. Heavily illustrated, a subvention will enable us to publish the work in full color.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
1. A Palace for the People 25
2. A Patriotic Sanctuary 78
3. The Womb of the Patria 127
Conclusion 179
Illustrations 193
Notes 197
Bibliography 215
Index 227

About the Author

Mary K. Coffey is Associate Professor of Art History at Dartmouth College.

Reviews

"This is a major work of scholarship, a sorely-needed and comprehensive treatment of the relationships between muralism and nationalist political culture, and between mural production and museum practice, in mid-twentieth-century Mexico." Leonard Folgarait, author of Mural Painting and Social Revolution in Mexico, 1920-1940: Art of the New Order "How a Revolutionary Art Became Official Culture is art history and socio-cultural analysis at its best. We now have, for the first time in English, a detailed discussion of how murals were integrated into museum practice in the one country in the Americas where muralism underpinned the development of state ideologies and popular culture." Barry Carr, author of Marxism and Communism in Twentieth-Century Mexico