From Exile to Auction : Art: Christie’s will sell a Siqueiros mural, painted on a Pacific Palisades patio wall in 1932, in November.

An important “mint condition” mural by renowned Mexican artist David Alfaro Siqueiros that has graced the patio walls of a Pacific Palisades home since it was painted in 1932 will be sold by Christie’s auction house on Nov. 19.

The mural, “Portrait of Present Day Mexico,” estimated by Christie’s to be worth between $1.5 million and $2 million, depicts the artist’s interpretations of contemporary political conditions in Mexico. It was one of three murals painted in Los Angeles by Siqueiros after the Mexican government exiled him to the United States for his revolutionary Marxist politics.

“It’s of extreme importance, both art historically and politically,” said Lisa Palmer, Christie’s vice president and director of the Latin American Art Department. “It’s the personal political statement of one of the great artists of modern Mexican painting, done at a time when he was in political exile. It’s definitely a national monument to Mexicans.”

The mural is painted on four walls, each of which is 99 inches tall. The main wall (378 inches wide) depicts General Plutarco Elias Calles, Mexican president from 1924-28 and the power behind several subsequent administrations, armed and sitting amid bags of money. Two somber women and a child are nearby, representing the living victims of Calles’ policies. On the left side wall (101 3/4 inches wide) are the stacked corpses of “Martyred Workers,” representing communists sacrificed by the ascending oligarchy. On the right side wall (101 3/4 inches wide) is a uniformed “Red Guard Soldier,” crouched with his rifle. On the left front wall, meant to represent North American imperialism, is a small portrait of American businessman J. P. Morgan, whose partner, Dwight Morrow, served as U.S. ambassador to Mexico and exerted much influence over Calles.

The mural was painted on the walls of the semi-enclosed patio at the Amalfi Drive home of the late film director Dudley Murphy, who had befriended Siqueiros when he came to Los Angeles. The painter was exiled after his involvement in a tumultuous 1930 May Day protest and subsequent violations of a house arrest that had kept him in the Mexican town of Taxco.

According to a catalogue essay on the mural written by Laurance P. Hurlburt, the work is especially significant in that it was “the artist’s first use of specific contemporary political imagery,” and led to his later development of political themes, such as that in his famed Mexico City mural “Portrait of the Bourgeoisie,” for the Mexican Electricians Union (1939-1940), in which he depicted the Spanish Civil War and its aftermath from his Marxist point of view.

Siqueiros (1896-1974), the youngest of los tres grandes (Siqueiros, Diego Rivera and Jose Clemente Orozco are known as “the big three” of the 20th-Century Mexican mural movement), came to Los Angeles from May to November of 1932. He taught at Chouinard School of Art, where he painted the mural, “A Workers’ Meeting,” which deals with sociopolitical criticism against racism. His second L.A. mural, “Tropical America,” was soon whitewashed by local authorities who objected to its themes of U.S. imperialism. It is currently being restored at its Olvera Street site by the Los Angeles-based Friends of the Arts of Mexico.

In fact, it was the whitewashing of “Tropical America” that led indirectly to “Portrait of Present Day Mexico” being painted. In his unpublished memoirs, director Murphy wrote of meeting Siqueiros when he was painting “Tropical America.”

“It was an exciting piece,” Murphy wrote, “but he was having difficulty with local authorities, as they claimed it was sacrilegious and, unfortunately, it was subsequently painted over. Siqueiros and I became great friends and to help him out, I . . . held a three-day exhibition of Siqueiros’ paintings in my house. . . . In gratitude for my help, Siqueiros offered to do a mural for me on the wall of the enclosed patio.”

Of the three L.A. murals, “Portrait” is not only the most personal, but it is also the only one “to survive in mint condition,” said Christie’s Palmer. She attributed the mural’s excellent condition to the fact that it was shielded by the semi-enclosed patio, and that it was “done in the true fresco style; there was no experimentation with new materials or methods.”

Palmer said she could not predict how the somewhat revolutionary idea of auctioning a Siqueiros mural would go over in the art market, but noted that “The market for this is very limited. It could only be of interest to institutions or individuals with extremely large homes. Obviously, we don’t expect 20 bidders.”

According to Palmer, lengthy studies have been done to assure that the mural can be removed without harm. It is being sold in situ with the buyer taking full responsibility for costs of removal and shipping.