The murals of revolutionary Nicaragua, 1979-1992

In the years following Nicaragua's 1979 Sandinista Revolution, more than three hundred murals were created by Nicaraguan and international artist brigades from over twenty different countries. David Kunzle was profoundly moved by the aesthetic and political power of these murals, and when he saw that they were being destroyed after the Sandinistas were voted out in 1990, he resolved to document them in all their visual splendor and stylistic variety. Today many of Nicaragua's best murals have been obliterated, and Kunzle's book may be the only record of them. About eighty percent of the murals are reproduced here, many with extensive commentary. Artistic styles from the primitivist to the highly sophisticated are represented; themes include literacy, health, children and family, and always the Revolution. Kunzle outlines the historical conditions in Nicaragua that gave rise to the Revolution and to the murals, from the era of Sandino and the Somozas to the Sandinistas and the subsequent U.S.-supported contra war. He chronicles the politically vindictive destruction of many of the best murals and the rise and fall of Managua's Mural School, a unique institution in the world. Kunzle also refers to other Nicaraguan public media such as billboards and graffiti, the great mural precedent in Mexico, and the attempts at socialist art in revolutionary Cuba and Chile.