Art of Latin America, 1900-1980 (Inter-American Development Bank)

When Marta Traba died in a plane crash outside Madrid on November 27, 1983, the art world lost one of its most distinguished - and most outspoken - contemporary critics. The focus of stormy controversy in the UK when she was denied residency by the Reagan administration because of her political views, Traba had been active for decades in the field of art criticism. She was on her way to a symposium in Bogota, where she and her husband, Angel Rama, were to be guests of honour, when she died. The manuscript of the present book was recovered after her death. In "Art of Latin America", Marta Traba offers new insights into the work of Latin America's most significant 20th-century artists. She argues, for instance, that the Mexican Muralist Movement - traditionally seen as a consequence of the Mexican Revolution - in fact reflected a new attitude toward art which had its origins in European Modernism. She shows how countries with significant numbers of European immigrants, such as Argentina, Brazil and Mexico, became centres of lively experimentation in matters of form, while countries with large Indian populations were more subject to the movement's political influence. She also examines the growing Latin American avant garde of the 1950s, and the subsequent reaction to it that led to a renewal of drawing and printmaking. Illustrated with more than 100 full-colour reproductions of some of the finest works of 20th-century Latin American art, this book should be of interest not only to art historians and students of Latin America, but to all with an interest in contemporary art.