Painting the town red? One hundred years of public muralism and the left: An introductory essay.

This article introduces a special volume marking the centenary of the 1923–24 "Manifesto of the syndicate of technical workers, painters and sculptors," authored by David Alfaro Siqueiros, and investigates the complex historical, historiographical, and theoretical relationships between mural painting and leftist politics from 1924 to 2024. It presents a comparative analysis of Mexican and U.S. murals from the inter-war period, challenging revisionist views that see them solely as state propaganda, and examines post-1968 exterior murals in London to problematize the binary between top-down state patronage and bottom-up community expression. The authors argue for a nuanced model recognizing murals as contested sites where artistic agency, state interests, and class struggle intersect, reflecting shifting political dynamics across the twentieth century. The article also contextualizes the evolution of muralism through the Cold War, the rise of neoliberalism, and contemporary street art, highlighting ongoing tensions between radical political content and institutional or market forces.