A monumental 1930s mural painted by Philip Guston and Reuben Kadish will go back on public view in the Mexican city of Morelia this week after an extensive restoration.
Located in an 18th-century Baroque palace in Morelia, converted later into the Regional Museum of Michoacán, the mural’s revamp is being unveiled after a family-run foundation overseeing Guston’s legacy, working with Mexico’s culture ministry, partnered with architects and conservators to reverse damage to it.
The wall painting has been deteriorating over time due to humidity, and the Guston Foundation enlisted Argentinian architect Luis Laplace to lead a plan to conserve it. In May 2024, a contract was signed to address damage and restore the piece, with a team led by Mexico’s National Institute of Fine Arts and Literature.
Guston and Kadish were in their early twenties and both from Los Angeles when they created the 1,024-square-foot fresco that took 180 days to complete. The piece was part of a publicly subsidized Depression-era program in the U.S. that commissioned American artists to paint murals on public buildings.
Partially influenced by a mutual mentor, David Alfaro Siqueiros, the mural is a critique of fascism and war, depicting historical atrocities carried out by European regimesa and Ku Klux Klan members. Guston, the son of Russian Jewish immigrants, painted the latter subjects many times throughout his life— references that historians have linked to his early exposure to KKK chapters while growing up in California.
The mural was rediscovered in 1973 and now, in its restored state, advocates of the project to conserve it argue its political messaging hasn’t lost its original weight. “Its message is as relevant today as it was 90 years ago,” Musa Mayer, Guston’s daughter, who oversees the artist’s foundation said in a statement. (Mayer has said she became aware of the damage around 2006.)
Sally Radic, the foundation’s executive director added in a statement circulated in press materials, “We’re thrilled with our collaboration with Mexico’s cultural institutions in preserving this masterpiece for future generations.”
