Higher Profile for Mexican Art

Though Los Angeles has long boasted an internationally acclaimed collection of classical, European and pre-Columbian art, museums here have oddly given short shrift to works with more proximity and relevance to our region: the paintings of Mexican artists in the 20th century, for instance.

Now thanks to the generosity of Bernard and Edith Lewin, Los Angeles- and Palm Springs-based art collectors, and the effort spearheaded by Miguel Angel Corzo, director of the Getty Conservation Institute, the city’s artistic frame broadened considerably last week with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s announcement that it will acquire more than 1,800 works by Mexican artists.

Much of the donated art evokes 20th century Mexican history and culture. Jose Clemente Orozco’s vivid but violently colorized paintings capture the revolutionary fervor of the early century. Rufino Tamayo’s brilliantly colored, softly formed and often gently humorous works reflect a sophisticated aesthetic that the Mexican maestro began developing in the 1920s as symbol of the country’s new internationalism.

What many of the works show, though, are sensibilities that should be familiar to all North Americans, particularly a historical ambivalence toward Europe. For instance, Frida Kahlo--portrayed in a painting by her husband, Diego Rivera--once loved luxurious European finery. But in the painting, done in 1939, she wears pre-Columbian raiment as a symbol of the refuge she was then finding in her nation’s historical traditions.

“Weeping Coconuts,” the one painting by Kahlo, may allude to the suffering she experienced after being disabled by a car accident (tears spring from the coconuts’ “eyes,” but lush fruits and a flowing Mexican flag affirm her love for land and country).

The gift’s greatest strengths include its Tamayos, said to be the best collection of his work in the United States. The same is true of the works by Guatemalan painter Carlos Merida and the drawings of Rivera. But the single Kahlo will attract public attention. “Weeping Coconuts,” along with 89 other acquisitions, will be shown at a special LACMA exhibition opening Nov. 23.

In the longer term, the museum should dedicate prominent and ample space to displaying the Lewin collection. That would achieve two key goals: raising LACMA’s profile in the Latino community and making a larger public aware of these treasures.