Day 10: San Miguel to Mexico City

Last night I was reading a little more about Bellas Artes and the reasons that the school closed and John had to move to Mexico City to finish art school. Apparently the school wanted a big name to teach mural painting. Rivera and Orozco were well employed. Siqueros was already an unpopular figure with many both because of his short temper and radical politics. He was the most radical leftist of all the famous Mexican painters of that time. I read somewhere that he was implicated in a plot to kill Trotsky. It was the one that succeed, but the one that failed.

At that time the President of Mexico was a leftist and Siqueros with Leonard and Rena Brooks were wined and dined by the President in the National Palace. A man named Castellano, president of Bellas Artes hired Siqueros at the school to help the schools’ reputation. Apparently once hired there were constant fights between Catillanos and Siqueros- over money it was said.  So much so that at times it became physical. There is a story that Siqueros “pushed?”- “threw?” Castillanos down the stairs and from that time it was inevitable that Siqueros would be fired.

In 1949 a convergence of forces led to the mass exit of GIs from the school. The House on Unamerican Activities put pressure on the American Embassy in Mexico to with-hold the GI Bill to those attending the Escuala Bellas Artes because Sequiros was not only a communist, but a radical communist. When Sequiros was fired, the other teachers went on strike. Under pressure from Castillanos the Mexican government sought to kick out all of the non-Mexican teachers. There were ten at the time.

Sterling Dickensen was another central figure in this story. He was an noted American artist from Chicago, hired to be Art Director ten years earlier. He and Siqueros were on a train bound for El Paso, Texas, when the train was abruptly stopped before the boarder. Three Mexican Federales got on and escorted Siqueros and Dickinson back to the school. Apparently a former Mexican general who was a student at the school intervened in their behalf and convinced the President to rescind the deportation order.

By this time most of the GIs had scattered to various art school in Mexico and the United States. John was one of these, who moved to Mexico City to study art at the Universidad Polytechnico.