The Siqueiros Mural in Santa Barbara The installation of the Portrait of Mexico Today, 1932, the only intact mural in the United States by the world-renowned Mexican artist David Alfaro Siqueiros, is not only an acquisition of paramount importance to the Museum's collection of modern art but a major addition to public art in the city which includes a long history of mural painting. Through its location on the front terrace of the Museum, the mural participates both in the daily life of the city and in the dialogue created by a rotating display of public artworks on State Street. Mural Tradition in Santa Barbara Santa Barbara has nurtured a thriving art scene for over one hundred years with a particularly strong emphasis on mural painting. Dan Sayre Groesbeck, one of the founders of the Santa Barbara Art League in the mid-1920s, was hired to work on as mural in the newly-built Santa Barbara County Courthouse, built in the Spanish-Mediterranean style after the 1925 earthquake decimated the city. Groesbeck's 1929 mural added to the city's consciously-designed new identity, by depicting romanticized versions of key historical events in the Spanish settlement of Santa Barbara. The well-known Mexican artist Alfredo Ramos Martínez-Siqueiros' teacher in Mexico City who preceded Siqueiros to California-created several murals in the Santa Barbara Cemetery in 1934-35. In 1934 Douglass Parshall, a WPA supervisor, hired Campbell Grant, who was a student at the Santa Barbara School of Art, to work on some murals. Parshall created a mural at Santa Barbara Junior High School, while Grant's went up at Santa Barbara High School. In 1936, Richmond Kelsey painted murals in El Paseo. John Marshall Gamble painted the ceiling in the Arlington Theater. Ross Dickinson created a mural in the little theatre of the Santa Barbara School of Art (later the Alhecama Theatre and presently the Ensemble Theatre). Both Dickinson and Kelsey taught printmaking at the Santa Barbara School of Art. In 1959 Channing Peake and Howard Warshaw painted murals with scenes from Don Quixote at Santa Barbara Library. The artists had been taught by the artist Rico Le Brun, who studied mural technique with Diego Rivera and Siqueiros. Mural painting continues throughout the contemporary period: Santa Barbara City College art professor Manuel Unzueta , working with his students, has completed numerous murals throughout the city and cites Siqueiros as a direct influence. THe SBMA's Latin American Collection Since its founding in 1941, the Santa Barbara Museum of Art has consistently and actively collected and exhibited Latin American art. The Museum's Latin American collection was officially launched when the institution received a core group of paintings and works on paper of the late 1950s and 1960s from the pioneering scholar of modern Mexican art, Dr. MacKinley Helm and his wife. In 1994, with a sizeable acquisition of major contemporary works including pieces by the Cuban-born Luis Cruz Azaceta and the Argentinean Miguel Angel Rios, the Museum's Latin American collection became firmly established as one of this institution's principal 20th-century collecting areas. This key collection area was further augmented in 1997 with the acquisition of a major Constructivist canvas by the international modernist Joaquín Torres-García entitled Compositíon 1932, and again in 1998 with a 1953 oil canvas by the modern Mexican painter Rufino Tamayo entitled Noche y Díaand in 2002 with an 1961 painting by the premier abstract artist Gunther Gerzso called Le Temps Mange La Vie (Time Eats at the Core of Life). In its 60-year history, the Museum has presented over 40 exhibitions of Latin American art. Point/Counterpoint: Two Views of 20th-Century Latin American Art was one of the institution's most celebrated art exhibitions, nominated in 1996 as "Best Show in a Museum" by the American Section of the International Association of Art Critics. Opening Celebrations and Events The Museum held a number of outreach and educational events to celebrate the opening of the mural including a community-wide celebration of the mural unveiling, a lecture series, and screening of a documentary video. The Museum received a major grant from The James Irvine Foundation to celebrate the opening of the mural. State Street in front of the Museum was closed to traffic for family-oriented, street festival celebration of the mural's public opening on October 20 from 1-4 pm. National and international dignitaries participated in the ceremonies. The Museum organized a variety of activities focused on the Siqueiros mural, the importance of Mexican muralism, public art, and Latin American culture including music, dance, theater, food, and craft-making workshops for children. The Museum created and circulated promotional and advertising material in both English and Spanish. This event was supported by a grant from The James Irvine Foundation. Documentary Videos The Museum produced For All to See: The Santa Barbara Siqueiros Mural, a half-hour documentary video directed by Isaac Mizrahi and narrated by Martin Sheen. The video places the mural in an historic context, discusses Siqueiros, and documents the process of conserving and moving the mural. The Museum broadcast the video locally and distributed it to schools in Santa Barbara, Ventura and San Luis Obispo Counties and high schools in the Central Valley. This project was supported by a grant from The James Irvine Foundation.