With nearly 200 works by over sixty Mexican and American artists, this exhibition reorients art history by revealing the profound impact the Mexican muralists had on their counterparts in the United States during this period and the ways in which their example inspired American artists both to create epic narratives about American history and everyday life and to use their art to protest economic, social, and racial injustices.

Mexico under Porfirio Díaz like the United States and other countries in the Western Hemisphere modernized at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth. The U.S. Library of Congress opened the Thomas Jefferson Building in 1897.This section focuses on growing dissatisfaction with Díaz’ constant reelections and his brutal suppression of dissent as troops enforced seizures of village land for private commercial agriculture. In 1908 Díaz stated in an interview with James Creelman that Mexico was ready for democracy and a new leader, an idea seconded by many throughout the country.