CARLI Digital Collections Featured Image: Monseñor Antonio de Valdivieso

Henry P. Houser (1924-2000) joined the Knox College Sociology Department in 1966. Towards the end of his career at Knox, after teaching several classes about small villages in Mexico, Professor Houser became interested in social change in Central America. Following his interest, Houser made several trips to Mexico, Cuba, Guatemala, Costa Rica and Nicaragua in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It was in Nicaragua where he discovered an interest in murals and the relationship between art and revolution. On his several trips to Nicaragua Houser documented and researched over 100 murals painted all over the country. This digital collection--a portion of the Henry Houser Manuscript Collection in the Knox College Special Collections and Archives--includes representations of 90 murals as well as digitized correspondence about the murals.

The “Monseñor Antonio de Valdivieso” mural is part of the "Historía de Nicaragua" (History of Nicaragua) mural project in Barrio Riguero in Managua, Nicaragua. Bishop Valdivieso was a bishop in Leon, Nicaragua, one of the first bishop martyrs who was assassinated for defending indigenous peoples and speaking out against their mistreatment. This mural shows him standing up against a wealthy landowner on a horse, with a peasant corpse beneath him. The murals painted in this building were part of a project by Italian muralist Sergio Michilini, who led a team of Italians to train and teach Nicaraguan artists muralism.

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