By: David Alfaro Siqueiros

Medium: Etching and roulette on Chine collé
Year: 1968
Edition of 200
ImageSize:  26 in x 19.75 in

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 Maternidad.

This almost monochrome lithograph is more painterly than other depictions of the subject from this later period. Here, a mother looks down at the child she carries, her posture urgent and dynamic. Several mother and child figures in a similarly forward-moving stance appear in Siqueiros’ mural, La Marcha de la Humanidad (Polyforum Cultural Siqueiros, Mexico City), which was nearly complete by 1970.