"Giant, looming figures stride across a wall covered with allusions to the life of Jesus, the Spanish Inquisition and the Ku Klux Klan, alongside Nazi and Communist symbols, and tools of torture."

 

"long-neglected 1930s mural in Mexico that warns about the rise of fascism 

 has been revealed and restored – just as some historians say the world faces that threat once more.

The mural, which is titled The Struggle Against Terrorism, 

 covers a 40ft wall in a colonial courtyard in Morelia, Michoacán,  

and depicts a history of persecution and resistance from biblical times to the modern day." 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jan/31/philip-guston-mural-mexico  

"Painted in 1934, it was the first major commission for Philip Guston and Reuben Kadish, two artists born to Jewish immigrants in the US and living in Los Angeles at a time of political tumult." 

 "Fascism was coming in; the Ku Klux Klan was in Los Angeles.”

Just how two 21-year-old Americans – both of whom went on to become renowned artists – ended up painting a mural in a small Mexican city 

 is unclear, though it seems they were encouraged to go to Mexico by David Alfaro Siqueiros, a pioneer of Mexican muralism.

After the Mexican revolution (1910-20), artists such as Siqueiros and Diego Rivera, who was married to Frida Kahlo, 

 sought to tell the national story to a largely illiterate population "

 by painting it in an epic form on public walls and buildings.