A Valuable Siqueiros Mural Makes Its Move

The David Alfaro Siqueiros mural “Portrait of Present Day Mexico,” which the artist painted on the patio walls of a private Pacific Palisades residence in the 1930s, left Los Angeles County Wednesday morning and arrived at its new home, the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, on Thursday.

During the past 21/2 months, the mural’s surface had been stabilized by a team of conservators, a steel substructure added and all four walls--one main wall, 32 feet long; two 81/2-foot side walls and a short front wall--were removed as a unit and crated.

On Wednesday, the 51,000-pound package was loaded onto a specially equipped flatbed truck for the trip north.

It was kept overnight at a warehouse, and at the museum Thursday morning, a crane lifted it some 20 feet off the ground, gently swinging it up and over streetlights and treetops to drop it into place on a new foundation at the right of the museum’s State Street entrance.

For Robert Frankel, executive director of the museum, it was a milestone in a long process. The museum raised $1 million to pay for conservation and moving expenses, and all told, he said, they had spent “two years figuring out if and how to move it so that it would remain intact.” When it was eased into place, Frankel and a small crowd applauded.

The mural, a gift to the museum, will supplement its nationally recognized collection of Latin American art. Valued at $1.5 million to $2 million in 1991, “Portrait of Present Day Mexico” depicts Siqueiros’ left-wing political views, with images of one of Mexico’s presidents masked and hunkered down on a pile of money bags, and a portrait of U.S. banker J.P. Morgan opposite him. Around them are images of impoverished peasants and martyred workers.

Museum officials expect that it will take the rest of the year to complete the mural’s installation; they estimate that it may be open to the public in early 2002.

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Freelance writer Susan Emerling contributed to this story.