Grabados de Jose Guadalupe Posada (Prints of Jose Guadalupe Posada), 1975
Printed by the Fondo de Cultura Economica Argentina
Twenty One Off-set Lithographs
Edition #3/400
13.5" h x 10.5" w, paper size
Excellent condition
This portfolio accompanied an exhibition produced by the Fondo de Cultura Economica in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1975. The portfolio contains twenty-one reproduction images from the exhibition, ranging from Posada's infamous calaveras, as well as his lesser known illustrations depicting sensational news stories of the day.
José Guadalupe Posada (1851–1913) was a Mexican illustrator known for his satirical and politically acute calaveras. Deriving from the Spanish word for 'skulls', these calaveras were illustrations featuring skeletons which would, after Posada's death, become closely associated with the mexican holiday Día de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead. Most of these calaveras were published by the press of Antonio Vanegas Arroyo which produced inexpensive literature for the lower classes, including thousands of satirical broadsides which Posada illustrated.
Through this focus on mortality Vanegas Arroyo and Posada satirized many poignant issues of the day, in particular the details of bourgeois life and the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz. On January 20th 1913, 3 years after the start of the Mexican Revolution, José Guadalupe Posada died at his home in obscurity. He was penniless and buried in an unmarked grave. It was only years later in the 1920s that his work became recognized on a national and international level after it was championed by the French ex-patriot artist Jean Charlot who described Posada as “printmaker to the Mexican people."
