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Date
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1943
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Description
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This collection contains 25 wood engraving prints by Leopoldo Méndez, published in a limited edition by La Estampa Mexicana in 1943. There were 100 copies produced.
The prints are with their original woven fiber portfolio which includes an introduction by Juan de la Cabada and an index. Each print is signed by the artists.
The subject of the prints are largely images of Mexican laborers engaged in their various tasks, such as horsemen, newsboys, weavers, chicle gathers, and Fascism and Nazisim, and popular resistance in Mexico. Some prints were created before 1943.
The folio is a compilation of works by Méndez. The collection includes one extra print which was a bookplate created by Méndez for Harold Leonard (also signed by the artist). There is a brief biography of the artist in Spanish and English by Juan de la Cabada.
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Dimensions
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1 prelim. leaf, 25 pl., 1 leaf. 28 cm
24.8 x 19.7 cm (9 13/16 x 7 11/16 inches) (sheet)
La Venganza de los Pueblos A man with a raised axe and other workers attacking Nazi soldiers. Hitler at lower left with hands on dead babies, followed by Mussolini, burning churches and figures on gallows.
Por Enseñar a Leer A man and woman pointing at a man holding a chair, who is also being threatened by two masked bandits, one of whom holds a gun.
Chiclero Chicle gatherer; face surrounded by roots and foliage. Signed in pencil
The Symphonic Concert of Skeletons, 1943 In 1942 the Taller de Gráfica Popular published a portfolio of Méndez’s prints, including some of his most famous caricatures from the early 1930s. Méndez often engaged in pointed satire in these works, which were representative of the era’s divisive politics. Calaveras of the National Mausoleum, perhaps the first use of the calavera in post revolutionary prints, portrays the elite inauguration of the Palacio de Bellas Artes. It brands the skeletons of Rivera and Carlos Riva Palacio, head of the Partido Nacional Revolucionario, as reactionary capitalists, and in Rivera’s case, ironically as a sympathizer of the Fourth International, led by the Soviet dissident Leon Trotsky.