Exhibit of Latin American master painters opens

Santa Ana’s Bowers Museum has just opened an exhibit of 41 works by Latin American master painters. The art’s in the collection of the Mexican company that bottles Dos Equis beer and Coca-Cola sold in Mexico. KPCC’s Adolfo Guzman-Lopez has the story.

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez: The big names of mid-20th century Latin American art are here: Cuban Wifredo Lam, Chilean Roberto Mata, and Mexican muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros. Mexico City art historian Luis Martin Lozano, a consultant for FEMSA, the company that owns the art, describes Siqueiros’s 1947 painting of a sleeping woman.

Luis Martin Lozano: She’s not aware of her own beauty. She’s not aware of the richness that surrounds her. And she’s waiting to awaken, to realize who she is.

It’s a metaphor about the search for identity. It’s a metaphor about the state of mind of Mexicans in the first half of the century, trying to dream and reach their own progress as an independent nation.

Guzman-Lopez: The works on display range from cubism, landscapes, and surrealist paintings to an oil work by Frida Kahlo. The exhibit’s up until December.