Presented coolly enough as a reassessment of the influence Mexican artists had on North American art, I could not greet “Vida Americana: Mexican Muralists Remake American Art” with detachment. The three Mexican muralists central to the show—Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, and José Clemente Orozco—were touchstones for my lefty artist father. A number of my father’s old buddies and teachers from the American Artists School—where a free art education was briefly to be had, between 1936 and 1941, courtesy of the John Reed Club—are in the show.
