As you explore the exhibition, scroll through this page to learn more about the artistry, history, and context of each collection.
– Posada Art Foundation
José Guadalupe Posada Aguilar was born in Aguascalientes, Mexico on February 2, 1852. He died in Mexico City, Mexico on January 20, 1913. He worked as a lithographer, engraver and illustrator during a time when photo-mechanical technology was in its infancy but growing in its use.
Posada’s art was and is among the most widely seen, both during his career and today, making him perhaps one of the most influential of all Mexican artists. Yet he died in relative obscurity, and even today, his name has yet to achieve the level of recognition as that of artists such as Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, or Rufino Tamayo.
Antonio Vanegas Arroyo (1850–1917) was born in Puebla, Mexico. In 1867, he moved to Mexico City. There, he established a printing house.
The publications produced by Vanegas Arroyo were circulated around much of Mexico and also but less frequently into Spanish speaking portions (especially border state areas) of the United States. The adult level of literacy in Mexico during this time is reported to have been 32%.
Possibly as early as 1889, Posada began working for Vanegas Arroyo. Vanegas Arroyos’ understanding of the market for his publications possibly motivated him to hire Posada as his chief illustrator. Vanegas Arroyo clearly needed someone who could craft an illustration in which the graphics communicated as much as possible regardless of the viewer’s degree of literacy.
Broadsheets were sold in the plaza, on the streets and in the market place for a penny a piece. They were the newspaper of the poor working class and expressed their frustrations, fears, angers, and aspirations. Posada’s work represented their collective voice.
Sources: University of California Berkeley Library (photo), Posada Art Foundation
When José Guadalupe Posada began working for Vanegas Arroyo, a talented engraver named Manuel Manilla (1830? -1895?) was already employed at the printing house. But as may be seen when comparing the work of Manilla and Posada, Manilla was stiffer and more classic in style, while Posada’s technique was more animated and imaginative. In Posada, Vanegas Arroyo found an illustrator whose images of folk heroes, sensational crimes, and disasters supported the story lines, and more often than not, stood on their own in such a way that they required no words at all.
Calavera Tapatia, Manuel Manilla, no date
Glorious Success of Ponciano Díaz and His Brave Charros in the Bull Rings of Madrid, Manuel Manilla, 1889
Assault on the Train from Cuernavaca by those execrable bandit Zapatistas, José Guadalupe Posada, printed 1910
Sources: Art Instituted of Chicago (image), Museum of Modern Art (image), Posada Art Foundation
A chapbook is a small publication of up to about 40 pages, produced cheaply and sometimes bound with a saddle stitch. Chapbooks are usually printed on a single sheet folded into books of 8, 12, 16 or 24 pages. When illustrations were included in chapbooks, they are considered popular prints.
The tradition of the ephemeral, “penny press” chapbooks arose in the 16th century, as soon as printed books became affordable, and rose to its height during the 17th and 18th centuries. Many different kinds of ephemera and popular or folk literature were published as chapbooks, such as almanacs, children’s literature, folk tales, ballads, nursery rhymes, pamphlets, poetry, and political and religious tracts.
The term “chapbook” for this type of literature was coined in the 19th century. The corresponding French term is bibliothèque bleue (blue library) because they were often wrapped in cheap blue paper that was usually reserved as a wrapping for sugar. In Spain, they were also known as pliegos sueltos, which translates to loose sheets, because they were literally loose sheets of paper folded once or twice in order to create a booklet in quarto format. The term “chapbook” is also in use today for short, inexpensive booklets.
Image source: Public domain. Content source: Wikipedia.
La Macetita, Nueva Colección de Canciones No. 5, José Guadalupe Posada, 1901
Un Dia de Gloria, Canciones modernas, No. 26, José Guadalupe Posada, 1895
Simon el Bobito, José Guadalupe Posada, 1880 – 1910
In 1900 the Maucci Brothers, a Spanish publisher, commissioned Posada to illustrate a series of pamphlets for children on the history of Mexico. The cover illustrations are probably the only mechanically produced chromolithographs that Posada ever did.
The series comprised 110 little chapbook-sized booklets, each measuring about 12.5 x 8 cm. Every “Maucci book” had a color illustration on the front and three black and white illustrations inside. Posada signed only five of the Maucci books.
Image source: Public domain. Content source: UC Berkeley Library
Las Ambiciones de Napoleon III, José Guadalupe Posada, chapbook published by Maucci Hermanos, 1901
El Cinco de Mayo de 1862, José Guadalupe Posada, chapbook published by Maucci Hermanos
Aventuras del Principe Flor de Nopal o La Gratitud de un Amigo, José Guadalupe Posada, Chapbook published by Maucci Hermanos, 1900
Source: Posada & Manilla: Illustrations for Mexican Fairy Tales, Mercurio Casillas, 2013
While Posada referenced several literary characters in his work, one of the most action-packed is Don Quixote.
Don Quixote mistook windmills for giants and attacked them with his lance. This episode in Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes’ Don Quixote, first published in 1605, is often the first thing that comes to mind when thinking about the character. Considered a founding work of Western literature, Don Quixote is one of the most-translated books in the world and one of the best-selling novels of all time.
Source: Britannica
Around the World in Eighty Days by French writer Jules Verne, 1873
Heidi by Swiss writer Johanna Spyri, published in two volumes, 1880–81
The Jungle Book by English writer Rudyard Kipling, 1894
Treasure Island by Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson, 1883
Woodcuts are relief printing plates made by carving marks in blocks of long grained planks or plywood. Long-grain refers to the grain following the direction of growth; in other words, parallel to the trunk or branch the piece of wood was cut from. Four woodcut printing plates and one acid etching metal plate by Posada are on display in this exhibition.
To save costs, Vanegas Arroyo often used the same plates to illustrate different stories. The image for Carrancistas first appeared in 1895 to satirize Mexico City’s leading publishers, for instance, and was later used to skewer the upper-middle class fad of bicycle riding.
Calavera carrancista, José Guadalupe Posada, ca. 1889-1895, public domain
Vanegas Arroyo and Posada knew by intuition and experience what attracted the attention of the ordinary person. Each day they produced broadsheet stories and illustrations depicting noteworthy news and events that dealt with accidents, natural disasters, politics, crime, and/or social satire.
The calavera (a word that means “skull” in Spanish but that has come to mean the entire skeleton) has become one of the most recognizable cultural and artistic elements of the Day of the Dead festivities. Made from wood, paper maché, sugar paste, or carved bone, today’s calaveras tend to be joyful, celebratory figures.
Source: Google Arts & Culture
Introduced to satirical art through his apprenticeship with Trinidad Pedrozo, José Guadalupe Posada gained experience with lithography in the 1870s. Due to the radical nature of Pedrozo’s work, Posada was forced to flee to the city of León, but they set up another print shop there. Both Posada and Pedrozo gained local acclaim for their lithographic works, but Posada eventually left to work on his calaveras.
Many of Posada’s calaveras are satirical, criticizing the deeply engrained social inequality of Mexican society during his lifetime. In using calaveras as a metaphor for the emotional strain of inequality, Posada can be classified as an early Expressionist.
This is Posada’s La Calavera Catrina – the ‘elegant skull’ – often simply La Catrina. This calavera depicts a woman with a large, fancy hat that was popular among the aristocracy in Europe and Mexico. However superficially festive it may appear, La Catrina’s presence throughout Mexico’s Day of the Dead mythology makes a much deeper statement of mortality, destiny, and the societal divisions of class.
Sources: Fine Arts Center at Colorado College, Posada Art Foundation, National Geographic
– Posada Art Foundation
“Another theme that Posada exploited was religious handbills, a great favorite of the people. They recounted wonderful miracles or told tales of transgressions and punishment. They carried the images of religious figures that were regarded as potent sources of divine mercy. In executing these figures, Posada showed he could be reverent and well as satirical.”
Broadside detailing a religious procession for Saint John and Saint Ana, José Guadalupe Posada, ca. 1900–1913. Public domain.
Chaos during an earthquake, José Guadalupe Posada, ca. 1894. Public domain. Image included in the broadsheet “Horrible temblor. ¡Muchas casas caídas y cuarteadas! Muertos y heridos”
“Sensational news and calamities—such as murders, disasters, revolts, and popular heroes—were all material for broadsheet publication. Crimes, especially sensational ones, were of particular interest to the public. Images and stories about crime comprised more than half the work produced by Vanegas Arroyo. The escapades of rural bandits were so popular that even years after their deaths, copies of their stories continued to be sold. Sales of broadsheets covering crimes by women outnumbered all other incidences. In terms of broadsheet sales, natural and man-made disasters were second only to crime.”
Source: MexConnect
From his earliest years working with José Trinidad Pedroza in the 1870s, Posada created illustrations that not only depicted current events but integrated commentary. By the time he began working with Antonio Vanegas Arroyo in the late 1880s, he was well-versed in portraying beliefs, daily life and lifestyles, the abuses of government, and the exploitation of the common people. While his name was not widely known, his artistic prowess as a draftsman, engraver and lithographer was instantly recognized by his contemporaries.
Sources: The Organization of American States Art of the Americas project and the Posada Art Foundation
produced by KSAT News 12, San Antonio, TX
Sun Mad, Ester Hernandez, 1982, serigraph on paper, 20 x 16 in., Posada Art Foundation
Posada was not recognized as a prominent artist or a public figure during his lifetime. His inclusion in Mexican art tradition is due to the recovery of his iconography by artists in the post-revolutionary cultural movement, both in Mexico and internationally, who saw genuinely popular and Mexican creativity in his work. By the 1930s, Posada became known as the artist of the people and a pioneer of the Mexican modern art movement. His work turned him into a quintessential model for post-revolutionary artists and a key figure of Mexico’s visual culture.
Source: Posada Art Foundation
Through his talent, José Guadalupe Posada “lampooned politicians, recorded vivid images of the Mexican Revolution, inspired Mexico’s famed Taller Grafica Popular to use art for social causes, helped the Cuban Revolution succeed, adorned concert tickets for the Grateful Dead, and today leaps to life annually as the skeletal images seen during Day of the Dead, so popular now there is even a Disney and Pixar film, Coco, that celebrates the holiday.”
Source: Albuquerque Museum
A Dream of a Sunday Afternoon in the Alameda Park by Diego Rivera, 1946-47, center detail of a fifty-foot fresco, Museo Mural Diego Rivera
Alameda Park was Mexico City’s first city park that was built on the grounds of an ancient Aztec marketplace. This large mural by Diego Rivera represents three principal eras of Mexican History: The Conquest, The Porfiriato Dictatorship, and The Revolution of 1910.
In the center of the mural is ten-year-old Rivera holding hands with Posada’s La Calavera Catrina. Holding La Catrina’s arm is Posada himself, well-dressed in a black suit and derby hat. Rivera highly respected Posada as a teacher and artistic luminary. La Catrina, a symbol of the Mexican bourgeoisie at the turn of the nineteenth century, must also be taken here as an allusion to the Aztec Earth Mother Coatlicue, who wears around her neck a plumed serpent to symbolize her son Quertzalcoatl. Between young Rivera and La Catrina, wearing a traditional Mexican dress, is Frida Kahlo. Kahlo holds the Chinese Yin-Yang symbol, which in this context also represents the duality from pre-Columbian mythology. Kahlo’s other hand rests on the shoulder of the young Diego, who walks through life under her protection
Source: Diegorivera.org
– Diego Rivera, Mexican artist (1886-1957)
The mission of the Posada Art Foundation is to educate, inspire and sustain the legacy of Mexican artist José Guadalupe Posada (1852-1913). The Foundation, through the presence of its exhibitions, merchandise and licensing sales supports a variety of not-for-profit organizations projects in the visual arts and education that assist youth development, as well as organizations involved in education and research in social movements.
José Guadalupe Posada: Legendary Printmaker of Mexico is organized by the Posada Art Foundation. Museum tour organized by Landau Traveling Exhibitions, Los Angeles, CA.
If you’re looking for things to do after your visit to the AMA, check out A World of Wonderful, THE source for information about nearby hotels, transportation options, vacation packages, special events, and more.
Another great resource for discovering local restaurants, coffee shops, and cultural attractions within walking distance of the AMA is the Downtown Arlington website. Their self-guided mural walking tour is not to be missed!
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