Title: Great Depression: Activities
Headings: 
Great Depression: Respond and Relate | Activity
Great Depression: Political Expressions and Social Justice | Activity
Great Depression: The Art of Everyday | Activity
Great Depression: WPA-Era Art in Your Community | Activity

Content: Great Depression: Political Expressions and Social Justice | Activity
Diego Rivera, Viva Zapata, 1932, lithograph, Rosenwald Collection, 1943.3.7357
José Clemente Orozco, Flag (Bandera), 1928, lithograph, Rosenwald Collection, 1944.2.45
"For the first time in the history of monumental painting, Mexican muralism ended the focus on gods, kings and heads of state and made the masses the hero of monumental art. "--Diego Rivera
In this quote, Rivera is referring to large-scale murals he and other artists were commissioned to paint by the Mexican government focused on the lives of ordinary people, rather than the elite. Rivera and a group of Mexican muralists greatly influenced the creation of US government art programs during the Depression, as well as the work of many WPA-era artists who became well-known in later years, such as Jackson Pollock. The Mexican Revolution (1910–1920) overthrew a dictatorship favoring the elite class, ushering in an era in which workers and farmers gained political empowerment. The new government, seeking to recognize the shifts in society and stoke pride in Mexican heritage, hired artists to represent the history and people of Mexico. Key among those artists were Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, and David Alfaro Siqueiros . They looked to the country’s pre-Columbian history for sources of inspiration, as well as to the heroes of the Mexican Revolution such as Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata. Zapata is pictured in this work created by Rivera (based upon a painting at the Museum of Modern Art). The art of Rivera, Orozco, and Siqueiros offered a new model: