BGuthrie Photos: DC -- Embassy of Mexico -- Mexican Cultural Institute

DC -- Embassy of Mexico -- Mexican Cultural Institute:

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Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. MEXCI_120204_161.JPG: The Murals The Panamerican Mural: The Panamerican mural symbolize friendship among North, Central, and South American countries, with notable historic hemispheric leaders (clockwise from upper right): Washington (US), Hidalgo (Mexico), Bolivar (Venezuela), Marti (Cuba), Lincoln (US), and Juarez (Mexico). Panamericanism became associated with the Good Neighbor Policy, by which the US, under President Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt, tried to reassure Latin American governments that it would not intervene in their affairs. The Landing of Columbus: This scene portrays a heroic Christopher Columbus planting the Spanish flag in the New World, backed by the Church and Spanish military might. We learn, for example, that Cueva's heroic portrait of Columbus (at the top of the stairway leading to the third floor) was originally planned as a portrait of the Spanish Conquistador Hernan Cortes. Cortes historic reputation had fared poorly after the Mexican Revolution, whose ideals emphasized the achievements of the pre-Conquest native civilizations, and Columbus, at the time, may have seemed a less controversial figure. Pre-Columbian Mexico: This scene is dominated by the mythological founding of the Aztec capital of Tenochtitian, now Mexico City, where an eagle with a serpent in its beak perched on a cactus, with the towering temple-pyramids of the city in its heyday in the background and the bearded God Quetzalcoati in the upper left.
2. MEXCI_120204_187.JPG: Carlos Fuentes in Washington DC (1934-1939) The great Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes lived in DC when his father, Rafael Fuentes, was assigned to the Embassy as Counselor from 1934 to 1939. The Fuentes family lived in a residential hotel on 16th Street facing Meridian Park. Young Carlos attended Henry D. Cooke Elementary School on 17th Street in those years. Carlos Fuentes used to visit the Embassy. He and his father were portrayed at the Mural of Robert Cueva del Rio.
3. MEXCI_120204_217.JPG: The Murals: "The painting depicts a festival that is celebrated each year in the city of Tehuantepec, which is very near the Pacific Coast. It is [a] harvest festival of flowers. Gaily dressed girls and women can be seen, with gorgeous gold chains around their necks and decked in festive garb. There are dancers and musicians, girls holding great wreaths of flowers, horsemen holding standards and candles of delicate workmanship which are taken to church as votive offerings. Over the center of the fresco a dancer of pagan origin moves rhythmically, dressed in brilliant colors with a headgear of feathers and shining metal." -- The Washington Post, October 12, 1941 Tehauntepec Festival: This scene representing the annual Festival of the Flowers in Tehuantepec, Mexico portrays women and men dancing with garlands of flowers, a family enjoying traditional food and drink, and in the center a male dancer with a dramatic Pre-Columbian mask and headdress. Rural Scene -- Ixtacchihuarti: This rural scene forms a pair with a similar mural on the other side of the doorway to the drawing room, with the great volcanoes of the Valley of Mexico looming over them, Ixtacchihuarti, in the case of this group of somewhat elegantly, traditionally costumed country people. Rural Scene -- Popocatepetl: This rural scene portrays typical agricultural activities, in the foreground, a small town with a Colonial church and government building in the middle ground, and the conical Popocatepetl volcano in the distance. Industrial Mexico: This scene is intended to contrast with the previous two: it celebrates modern, industrialized Mexico, with its airplanes, tractors, factories a hydroelectric plant in an urban setting in the middle ground, with the rows of men and women on horseback in the foreground intended to symbolize the continuity of Old Mexico with the new.
4. MEXCI_120204_234.JPG: Roberto Cueva Del Rio: The Heritage of Mexican Muralism in Washington DC: Robert Cueva del Rio (1908-1988) was born in Puebla, Mexico. At age 15, he became an illustrator at the newspaper Excelsior. His newspaper caricatures won him a scholarship to the prestigious San Carlos Academy of Fine Arts in Mexico City, which permitted him to travel through Mexico. In January 1930, Diego Rivera, then Director of the Academy, gave him an effusive letter of recommendation to travel to the United States. Cueva del Rio started painting the Embassy murals in 1933, but left them unfinished when he returned to Mexico in 1935. In 1941 [he] came back to complete the murals. Cueva del Rio's public murals tend to deal with historical scenes and portraits of heroes. He expresses his nationalism by portraying the uniqueness and diversity of Mexican culture, the dignity of ordinary men and women, the beauty of the countryside, the great events and heroes of Mexico's long history, and the progress of modern Mexico. Cueva del Rio's painting style is very much in the Rivera tradition: strongly modeled figures, bold colors, and heavy symbolism. We can see in a photo of the artist at work that he achieved these bold, simplified shapes by using a black outline technique. Water colors were applied al fresco, that is, on wet plaster. Cueva del Rio worked with his left hand only, as his right hand was disabled. The Models of the Mural: Some of the characters of the murals were generic ethnic or social types; others were individuals who lived at the Embassy or visited it frequently, such as six year old Carlos Fuentes. We can also recognize the smiling face of the young Aztec mother (left) at the top of the third floor stairs, just to the left of the doorframe, as Lupe Davile (above), niece of Ambassador Francisco Najera, seen descending the Embassy stairs with her schoolbooks in an article that appeared in the January 15, 1944, Christian Science Monitor. Erma Najera (above right), Ambassador's daughter, as she appeared in her bridal gown in an announcement of her wedding to Capt. Manuel Casto in the December 6, 1942, Washington Star. ... She appears on horseback on the right side of the Industrialization of Mexico mural.
5. MEXCI_120204_238.JPG: The Mansion and Its History, 2829 16th Street, NW: The remarkable building that houses the Mexican Cultural Institute, was commissioned by Mrs. Emily MacVeagh (wife of Franklin MacVeagh, a Chicago businessman turned Treasury Secretary under President Taft Administration) to be designed by Nathan Wyeth, distinguished architect of the West Wing of the White House. The mansion was built in 1910-1911. Wyeth employed a variety of styles in its design. The exterior facade, combines Italian, English and French architectural traditions. The house originally contained 26 rooms, 9 bathrooms and 2 terraces. The interiors were decorated mostly in Renaissance Revival styles made popular in the U.S. by the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago. While the overall appearance of the buff-colored brick facade has been described as resembling an Italian Renaissance palace, architectural details on the second and third stories are considered English Palladian, and the hip-roofed upper facade to be French-inspired. Highlights: 1910-1911: Construction of the mansion. Builder: George Fuller. Architect: Nathan Wyeth (who designed the West Wing of the White House). Cost: $120,000 (1910 dollars). 1911: The MacVeaghs offered a ball in honor of Miss Helen Taft, attended by President Taft and his wife. 1916: Mrs. MacVeagh passed away. The mansion was rented to Lord Balfour, Head of the British Mission to the White House. 1918: The mansion was rented to Breckenridge Long, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State. 1919: King Albert and Queen Elizabeth of Belgium were guests of the mansion. 1921: Under the Presidency of Alvaro Obregon, he mansion was purchased by the Government of Mexico for $330,775.50. The Mansion housed the Residency of the Ambassador (1976) and the Chancillery (1989). In 1990 the Mexican Cultural Institute opened its doors. The mansion throughout time.
6. MEXCI_120204_356.JPG: It was a very rainy night
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