Vicky Hamlin:  Three well-known artists, two Mexican and one American, had founded the “People’s Graphic Workshop” — an internationalist project right from the start — as a print collective in 1937. The Taller would become a hotbed for revolutionary-minded artists, supporters of the ideals of the Mexican and Russian Revolutions, then still recent  events.

What drew your father to the Taller?

Like many of the Mexican artists, such as the muralists Diego Rivera and David Alfaro Siqueiros, he belonged to the Communist Party, and both the Mexican and US party branches were part of the Third International founded by Lenin. The Taller was a dynamic place, both a school and a workshop where artists learned printmaking and created pieces together — the opposite of the individualistic approach to art in the Western tradition. They produced art accessible to all that carried messages supporting social change.

After the Taller, my father returned to the US and worked as a precision machinist and as an art teacher. He continued his political activities in the CPUSA. But in 1953 he was hauled before the infamous House Un-American Activities Committee. He refused to testify, saying that he did not recognize the panel’s authority. After that, he was blacklisted and had to find other work.

Many people consider art as something “above” politics and deem socialist art to be “propaganda,” not art.

That’s a Western and elitist view. We’ve always had art by and for the people. México, unlike Europe, has had a long history of indigenous art, much of it —pottery and weaving, for example — designed for daily use. 

México also has a long tradition of murals and printmaking. The Taller produced posters in the 1930s to help President Cárdenas promote his social programs. During the same period, artists in the US were similarly hired to promote FDR’s New Deal, and Mexican and US artists collaborated during those years.

Did US artists continue to work at the Taller after the Great Depression?

The African American sculptor and graphic artist Elizabeth Catlett and her then-husband, the printmaker Charles White, went to Mexico in 1946 to study the murals and graphic art produced after the Mexican Revolution. She stayed at the Taller for 20 years. Another more contemporary example: Rini Templeton, who moved to México and joined the Taller in 1974. We’ve all seen and maybe used her distinctive prints. She let everyone use her art for free. She didn’t want to “own” art. She made it to be useful to people in struggle.

Like father like daughter, you’re both a visual artist and a political activist. Do your own paintings serve a political purpose? 

I’ve thought about that all my life. As I grew older, I looked for more nuanced and long-term political messages, ones that lasted past single issues. Now I paint people in social situations, some political, some not, but always with an eye for what makes people tick, and especially what “ordinary” people are thinking, feeling, and doing. 

I paint women working in non-traditional occupations, especially the building trades and construction. Women had to fight to get those jobs and had to support each other to survive harassment on the job from male co-workers. My paintings celebrate and normalize their experience.