Portrait

Siqueiros is not well known for his portraiture, although he did produce a series of striking personal images after leaving Mexico in the mid-1930s. This portrait of a still-unidentified subject was completed in Spain in 1937. With the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War the previous year, Mexico had emerged as the Republican government's strongest Latin American ally, and Siqueiros joined many of his countrymen in the struggle against Franco's fascists. The artist had spent the previous year in New York, where he painted portraits of the Communist Party USA's presidential candidates, among others, and led the Experimental Workshop at the Museum of Modern Art.