Stephanie J. Smith offers a superb new study of art in Mexico from the 1920s to the 1950s. It is remarkable for its incorporation of new archival sources and mastery of existing scholarship: its consideration of the institutional importance of the Mexican Communist Party (PCM, Partido Comunista Mexicano) in the artistic life of Mexico in the decades following the Mexican Revolution (1910-17); its careful delineation of the relationships among individuals, the Party, and various internal, external, and personal influences (thereby revealing the complexity of choices and strategies negotiated during these vibrant though tumultuous decades); and, perhaps most important, its detailed recovery of and thoughtful commentary on the participation of women in the avant-garde artistic and radical political movements of this time and place.

Formed in 1917 and largely absorbed into new political formations during the 1980s, the PCM played an important role in Mexican intellectual, artistic, and labor circles. This book can be considered a useful extension and updating of the pioneering work of Barry Carr on Marxism and communism in twentieth-century Mexico (1992). Smith's book breaks new ground in its consideration of gender and sexuality and its incorporation of the cultural history approaches championed by Mary Kay Vaughan, Jocelyn Olcott, Gabriela Cano, Deborah Caplow, Masha Salazkina, Rick López, Stephen Lewis, John Mraz, John Lear, and James Oles, among others. The text is enriched by its deep and varied archival base, drawn from collections in Mexico, Europe, and the United States and including recently released internal security documents from Mexican intelligence agencies (19, 20). This reviewer especially enjoyed the reports by “internal security inspectors No. 20 and 58” on the “suspicious” content of a lecture on art by the painter David Alfaro Siqueiros; it included a careful description of the dress and appearance of the women in attendance (1), as well as the undercover agents’ reconstruction of the daily routine (including mail retrieval habits) of the non-communist art critic, publisher, and citizen of the United States Frances “Paca” Toor (125). Through the careful consideration of many newly released documents and underutilized collections, Smith succeeds in recovering much of the texture of daily life during an era marked at times by acute political conflict and social polarization.

Smith succeeds in developing an interdisciplinary methodology combining art criticism, art history, and the detailed archival research traditionally associated with social history. The freshness of the approach and the author's ability to situate artists within the main political currents and social trends of their era no doubt have been facilitated by her earlier career as an artist. The book provides new insights into the relationship among Siqueiros, Diego Rivera, and the PCM; Leon Trotsky's years in Mexico culminating in his assassination; and the inner workings of the L.E.A.R (Liga de Escritores y Artistas Revolucionarios) and the T. G. P. (Taller de Gráfica Popular).

Arguably, Smith's most important contribution comes in her analysis of women artists and their political as well as artistic achievements. She conclusively demonstrates the underestimated centrality of women to Mexico's postrevolutionary cultural renaissance and political life with her in-depth discussion of photographer Tina Modotti, as well as discussions of lesser known international and Mexican artists, writers, and political figures like Lola Álvarez Bravo, Anita Brenner, Elizabeth Catlett, María del Refugio García, Grace and Marion Greenwood, Conchita “Concha” Michel, Aurora Reyes, and Frances Toor, along with the now obligatory references to Frida Kahlo. As María del Refugio García and Concha Michel perceptively argued in the 1930s (137), patriarchy and capitalism operate according to different logics, creating different needs for revolutionary transformation, an insight that seems all the more prescient in our current #MeToo moment.

Artists and activists will continue to debate the necessity and perils of state and institutional patronage (and coalition politics), which, Smith argues, resulted in works and practices that “often lost the sharp edge that delineated visionary art” in early to mid twentieth-century Mexico (13, 189). As they debate, they would be well-advised to consider the historical experiences masterfully reconstructed in this excellent study.