David Alfaro Siqueiros in the context of Polyforum Cultural Siqueiros

San Miguel de Allende (Spanish pronunciation: [san miˈɣel de aˈʎende]) is the principal city in the municipality of San Miguel de Allende, located in the far eastern part of Guanajuato, Mexico. A part of the Bajío region, the town lies 274 km (170 mi) from Mexico City, 86 km (53 mi) from Querétaro and 97 km (60 mi) from the state capital of Guanajuato. The town's name derives from a 16th-century friar, Juan de San Miguel, and a martyr of Mexican Independence, Ignacio Allende, who was born in a house facing the central plaza. San Miguel de Allende was a critical epicenter during the historic Chichimeca War (1540–1590) when the Chichimeca held back the Spanish Empire during the initial phases of European colonization. Today, an old section of the town is part of a proclaimed World Heritage Site, attracting thousands of tourists and new residents from abroad every year.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the town was in danger of becoming a ghost town after an influenza pandemic. Gradually, its Baroque/Neoclassical colonial structures were "discovered" by foreign artists who moved in and began art and cultural institutes such as the Instituto Allende and the Escuela de Bellas Artes. This gave the town a reputation, attracting artists such as David Alfaro Siqueiros, who taught painting.

Mexican muralism refers to the art project initially funded by the Mexican government in the immediate wake of the Mexican Revolution (1910–1920) to depict visions of Mexico's past, present, and future, transforming the walls of many public buildings into didactic scenes designed to reshape Mexicans' understanding of the nation's history. The murals, large artworks painted onto the walls themselves had social, political, and historical messages. Beginning in the 1920s, the muralist project was headed by a group of artists known as "The Big Three" or "The Three Greats". This group was composed of Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiros. Although not as prominent as the Big Three, women also created murals in Mexico. From the 1920s to the 1970s, murals with nationalistic, social and political messages were created in many public settings such as chapels, schools, government buildings, and much more. The popularity of the Mexican muralist project started a tradition which continues to this day in Mexico; a tradition that has had a significant impact in other parts of the Americas, including the United States, where it served as inspiration for the Chicano art movement.

José Clemente Orozco (November 23, 1883 – September 7, 1949) was a Mexican caricaturist and painter, who specialized in political murals that established the Mexican Mural Renaissance together with murals by Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, and others. Orozco was the most complex of the Mexican muralists, fond of the theme of human suffering, but less realistic and more fascinated by machines than Rivera. Mostly influenced by Symbolism, he was also a genre painter and lithographer. Between 1922 and 1948, Orozco painted murals in Mexico City; Orizaba; Claremont, California; New York City; Hanover, New Hampshire; Guadalajara, Jalisco; and Jiquilpan, Michoacán.

In Mexico, the Secretariat of Public Education (in Spanish Secretaría de Educación Pública, SEP) is a federal government authority with cabinet representation and the responsibility for overseeing the development and implementation of national educational policy and school standards. Its headquarters has several buildings distributed throughout the country, but its main offices, initially confined to the Old Dominican Convent of the Holy Incarnation in the oldest borough of Mexico City, have extended to the House of the Marqués de Villamayor, (also known as the Casa de los adelantados de Nueva Galicia, built in 1530), the Old House of don Cristóbal de Oñate, a three-time governor and general captain of New Galicia (also built in 1530), and the Old Royal Customs House (built in 1730–1731). Some of the buildings were decorated with mural paintings by Diego Rivera and other notable exponents of the Mexican muralist movement of the twentieth century, David Alfaro Siqueiros, Raul Anguiano, and Manuel Felguerez.