Communist Art Thread (Communist Only)

[Laika]

Rather than do a lot of individual threads on specific pieces of art, I'm going to post them here for people to see. If you want to add anything feel free.

Here's a quick list of art movements with some Commie influences as a rough guide. Most are art movements of the early to mid 20th century when Communism had more influence amongst intellectuals and artists.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Futurism [futurists were often Fascist so this is debatable.]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_realism [Socialist Realism was the officially sanctioned Art style of Communist countries]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructivism_(art)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrealism

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Situationist_International

 

[Laika]

Here's a few from Socialist Realism (official state art).

I should have at least one including Lenin.

https://www.marxists.org/subject/art/visual_arts/painting/exhibits/socialist-realism.htm

 

[Laika]

Some examples of Japanese Proletarian Art from the 1920's and 30's. (Much more available through links).

(I quite like the second picture one down).

http://pinktentacle.com/2010/07/proletarian-posters-from-1930s-japan/

http://apjjf.org/2014/12/37/Christopher-Gerteis/4159/article.html

 

[Laika]

Some works by George Grosz who was a Communist in the 1920's (and possibly 30's) in Germany. He was part of the Dada and New Objectivity art movements of the time.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Grosz

 

[Laika]

Pablo Piccasso was a member of the French Communist Party from 1944 until his death in 1973.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pablo_Picasso

His enthusiasm for Communism waned in the 1950's however following Soviet criticism of a portrait of Joesph Stalin for not fitting into ideologically correct "realist" depiction of the subject. I was hoping for something a bit more cubist but you can see his style in the drawing. I suppose you can't have everything.

Piccasso's 1951 work "massacre in Korea" about the Korran War is one where his politics is more openly on display. I like the metallic blue grey colours of the solders personally.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_in_Korea

One of his most famous works named after the bombing of "Guernica" by nationalist forces in the Spanish civil war was produced in 1937 (before he joined the Communist Party). Given the context of this thread, it's worth nothing that Piccasso was explicitly neutral in which side he favoured in the Spainish civil war.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guernica_(Picasso)

 

[Laika]

Diego Rivera was a Trotskyist and a Mexican Painter. He is perhaps best known for painting Murals with political themes. This was part of the Mexican muralist movement that began in the 1920's as part of a cultural medium to spread political and social messages that would reunify the country following its revolution (1910-1920).

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diego_Rivera

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_muralism

As a note on US history, the mexican muralists were a cultural inspiration to the Chicano Art movement in the 1960's:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicano_art_movement

Back to Rivera, Here one of his murals on the conquest of Mexico by the Spainish:

Another showing an Aztec city celebrating mexico's pre-colonial past.

A mural of showing industrial workers as part of a series of murals on "Detroit industry".

And to finish off, his mural "man at a cross roads" with political themes taking centre stage. Lenin and Trotsky are visible on the right hand side of the painting and you'll see Charles Darwin is on the left hand corner pointing at the ape. The original was destroyed following a controversy with the Rockerfellers on whose wall he painted the original at the Rockerfeller Foundation in Manhatten. It was chiselled off the walls and Rivera had to start it over.

His wife Frida Kalho was also a painter and a Trotskyist but I'll try to save that for another time. Both Frida and Deigo are in the video below with Trotsky and his second wife, Natalia, during his exile in Mexico, where Trotsky was assassinated by a member of the NKVD in 1940.

Enjoy.