Portrait of Siqueiros

Bernard G. Silberstein

American photographer Bernard Silberstein built his international reputation doing assignments for National Geographic, Life, Holiday, The New York Times, Time, Colliers, Esquire, Popular Photography, The Camera and the Photographic Society of America (PSA) Journal. His subjects included the king of Morocco and artists of the Mexican muralist school. His photographs of Mexican painter Frida Kahlo have appeared in several books on the famous artist. His work appeared worldwide on album covers, textbooks and advertisements. He was recognized by PSA as one of the top five salon exhibitors in the U.S. in the 1950s. He was awarded a fellowship by the Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain, as well as one by PSA in 1951.

Silberstein captured this confidant image of Mexican muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros, posed in front of central section of his 1000 square foot mural triptych “New Democracy”, done between 1944 and 1945 for the Palacio Bellas Artes, Mexico City.

Author Mario de Micheli, in the Abrams publication “Siqueiros”, 1968, comments on page 17 about the mural.

“For reasons of space and architectural structure, Siqueiros was obliged to adopt a more traditional form of representation in painting the two murals in the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City…But as usual, even in that restricted space, he succeeded in creating rhythms that break through the limitations and constrictions of the architectural space at his disposal.

Perhaps the best example of this is another mural he painted in the Palacio…”The New Democracy”. This mural…is enclosed in a low-ceilinged room that offered no possibilities of expansion in any direction. The “New Democracy, together with the two smaller paintings that flank it, the “Victims of War” and “Victim of Fascism” form a kind of triptych.