David Alfaro Siqueiros

David Alfaro Siqueiros was a leading figure in the Mexican school of great mural painters, alongside José Clemente Orozco and Diego Rivera. Siqueiros work often featured social and political subjects, and demonstrated his influences, including Francisco Goya, religious art, and Italian Futurism.

The theme of motherhood recurred throughout Siqueiros' long career. Early paintings, notably Madre Proletaria (1929), Madre Campesina (1931), and Niña Madre (1936), depict a distraught mother carrying her children in scenes that dramatize the plight of revolution. Siqueiros increasingly returned to this subject in the late 1960s and early 1970s, titling a number of works titled Maternidad.