Back to the Museum

You may remember that last month Alejandro and I visited the new Museum of Muralism that recently opened in the former headquarters of the Secretariat of Public Education.  We only saw the ground floor of the museum, and we still had the two upper floors to see.  We made a return visit to see the rest of it.

The building is an apt choice for a museum on mural painting since each floor of the courtyards are already decorated with murals, most of them by Diego Rivera.  After the Mexican Revolution, the government wanted to solidify the national identity by commissioning artists to decorate public buildings throughout the nation.  The Secretariat of Public Education was one of the first.

On the second floor there are a series of paintings in which Rivera used a technique known as "grisaille"... painting in shades of gray to simulate stone carvings.  The theme of these works is the scientific knowledge needed to achieve progress in a post-revolutionary society.  These frescos were completed in 1923.

"Research"

"Surgery"

"Medicine"

"Chemistry"

In the rear courtyard, the second floor is decorated with the coats of arms of the states of Mexico.  These were done by uncredited students of Diego Rivera in 1923.

"Yucatán"

"Campeche"

"Oaxaca"

"Puebla"

There is just one room on the second floor with museum displays.  The exhibit deals with various aspects of the building's transformation from a colonial convent to a government building, and the mural paintings which were commissioned.

A painting from the early 19th century depicting the interior of the Convent of the Incarnation.

A photograph taken at the inauguration of the Public Education headquarters in 1922

Some of the sketches that Diego Rivera did for the murals in the courtyard

A photo of Indira Gandhi, prime minister in India, observing restoration work on the murals, during a visit to Mexico in 1960.

One of the stairwells of the building contains more murals by Diego Rivera.  I do not know if these were previously open to the public, but I do not remember seeing them on my visits here when it was still a government building.

Alejandro stands in front of a mural entitled "The Teacher".

"The Mechanization of the Fields"

 "The Burial"

On to the third floor...