José-Guadalupe Posada (1852–1913)
• Some basic facts:
• Posada was a Mexican printmaker, who had shown an early aptitude for drawing. He had some
schooling in the city of Aguascalientes and studied printmaking in the workshop of José Trinidad
Pedroza and publishing in his magazine El Jicote (The Hornet). Political pressure forced both Pedroza
and Posada to León, Guanajuato where Posada began wood-engraving. Posada moved to Mexico city
in 1888 and began to work for a printing house moving from lithography towards cheaper
printmaking on zinc, wood and type metal.
• Posada and his employer Antonio Vanegas Arroya printed flyers with Posada’s prints and verses for
the illiterate public. Posada also illustrated sensational stories in the paper Ejemplos, using the figure
of the devil to represent the temptation to commit serious crimes. He drew scenes from daily life,
festivities, brawls and traditional customs, and later portraits of well known figures such as political
hero Emiliano Zapata. He was occasionally jailed for his work.
• Posada’s fictional character Don Chepito was a way to criticize a social type (Don Chepito was also a
heavy Marijuana smoker – check out the eyes) but he is perhaps best known for his skeletons - the
calaveras. Calavera epitomize Posada’s originality. They draw on Mexican folk traditions and
anticipate Mexican mural painting of the 1920s and 1930s. They were skillfully executed, with
eloquent use of black and white as well as middle tones; proportion and disproportion were more
effectively used in his work on zinc, wood and type metal than in his lithographs.
• This was an edited version of Eisa García Barragán’s introduction to Posada, From Grove Art Online
• SOURCE: OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2009
http://www.moma.org/collection/artist.php?artist_id=4707
• I include Posada and his work in this course first
because the art is great. His unique prints capture
a Mexican cultural sensibility, even as they
contributed to the development of that sensibility.
His calaveras are eye catching and somehow
irreverent. Though we often see his art as isolated
images (especially now where they are reproduced
on everything) in practice his art – woodcuts and
prints – were part of a single sheet publication (an
inexpensive flyer or broadsheet that would be
widely read) that included written verse – a
popular poem - about the topic. The poem might
be turned into a song. In this way the images
became part of popular culture. Part of what
makes these images interesting is that they were
produced for widespread public consumption and
disseminated in an inexpensive
• A few other points. Posada’s work – woodcuts – were
not “tradition” in the sense that he was doing
something that had always been around. Instead, he
was producing art in a new style that felt old and
traditional to a Mexican public audience at the time.
A way for Mexicans to enjoy something that was at
once contemporary – offering comments on life in the
moment – but felt traditional.
• On another note – this powerpoint does not have my
voice over. It does have three youtube videos in slides
– so you have to run it in slideshow mode. It takes
time but it should work.
Video on Posada – Official from State of Aguascalientes. Has
imperfections but fun. You have to be in slide show mode for this
to work.
José-Guadalupe Posada (1852–1913)
• Some basic facts:
• Posada was a Mexican printmaker, who had shown an early aptitude for drawing. He had some
schooling in the city of Aguascalientes and studied printmaking in the workshop of José Trinidad
Pedroza and publishing in his magazine El Jicote (The Hornet). Political pressure forced both Pedroza
and Posada to León, Guanajuato where Posada began wood-engraving. Posada moved to Mexico city
in 1888 and began to work for a printing house moving from lithography towards cheaper
printmaking on zinc, wood and type metal.
• Posada and his employer Antonio Vanegas Arroya printed flyers with Posada’s prints and verses for
the illiterate public. Posada also illustrated sensational stories in the paper Ejemplos, using the figure
of the devil to represent the temptation to commit serious crimes. He drew scenes from daily life,
festivities, brawls and traditional customs, and later portraits of well known figures such as political
hero Emiliano Zapata. He was occasionally jailed for his work.
• Posada’s fictional character Don Chepito was a way to criticize a social type (Don Chepito was also a
heavy Marijuana smoker – check out the eyes) but he is perhaps best known for his skeletons - the
calaveras. Calavera epitomize Posada’s originality. They draw on Mexican folk traditions and
anticipate Mexican mural painting of the 1920s and 1930s. They were skillfully executed, with
eloquent use of black and white as well as middle tones; proportion and disproportion were more
effectively used in his work on zinc, wood and type metal than in his lithographs.
• This was an edited version of Eisa García Barragán’s introduction to Posada, From Grove Art Online
• SOURCE: OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2009
http://www.moma.org/collection/artist.php?artist_id=4707
• I include Posada and his work in this course first
because the art is great. His unique prints capture
a Mexican cultural sensibility, even as they
contributed to the development of that sensibility.
His calaveras are eye catching and somehow
irreverent. Though we often see his art as isolated
images (especially now where they are reproduced
on everything) in practice his art – woodcuts and
prints – were part of a single sheet publication (an
inexpensive flyer or broadsheet that would be
widely read) that included written verse – a
popular poem - about the topic. The poem might
be turned into a song. In this way the images
became part of popular culture. Part of what
makes these images interesting is that they were
produced for widespread public consumption and
disseminated in an inexpensive
• A few other points. Posada’s work – woodcuts – were
not “tradition” in the sense that he was doing
something that had always been around. Instead, he
was producing art in a new style that felt old and
traditional to a Mexican public audience at the time.
A way for Mexicans to enjoy something that was at
once contemporary – offering comments on life in the
moment – but felt traditional.
• On another note – this powerpoint does not have my
voice over. It does have three youtube videos in slides
– so you have to run it in slideshow mode. It takes
time but it should work.
Video on Posada – Official from State of Aguascalientes. Has
imperfections but fun. You have to be in slide show mode for this
to work.
Some simple examples:
Conversation of the Good Calaveras & The Couple
Street Cleaning Calaveras
José-Guadalupe Posada (1852–1913)
• Some basic facts:
• Posada was a Mexican printmaker, who had shown an early aptitude for drawing. He had some
schooling in the city of Aguascalientes and studied printmaking in the workshop of José Trinidad
Pedroza and publishing in his magazine El Jicote (The Hornet). Political pressure forced both Pedroza
and Posada to León, Guanajuato where Posada began wood-engraving. Posada moved to Mexico city
in 1888 and began to work for a printing house moving from lithography towards cheaper
printmaking on zinc, wood and type metal.
• Posada and his employer Antonio Vanegas Arroya printed flyers with Posada’s prints and verses for
the illiterate public. Posada also illustrated sensational stories in the paper Ejemplos, using the figure
of the devil to represent the temptation to commit serious crimes. He drew scenes from daily life,
festivities, brawls and traditional customs, and later portraits of well known figures such as political
hero Emiliano Zapata. He was occasionally jailed for his work.
• Posada’s fictional character Don Chepito was a way to criticize a social type (Don Chepito was also a
heavy Marijuana smoker – check out the eyes) but he is perhaps best known for his skeletons - the
calaveras. Calavera epitomize Posada’s originality. They draw on Mexican folk traditions and
anticipate Mexican mural painting of the 1920s and 1930s. They were skillfully executed, with
eloquent use of black and white as well as middle tones; proportion and disproportion were more
effectively used in his work on zinc, wood and type metal than in his lithographs.
• This was an edited version of Eisa García Barragán’s introduction to Posada, From Grove Art Online
• SOURCE: OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2009
http://www.moma.org/collection/artist.php?artist_id=4707
• I include Posada and his work in this course first
because the art is great. His unique prints capture
a Mexican cultural sensibility, even as they
contributed to the development of that sensibility.
His calaveras are eye catching and somehow
irreverent. Though we often see his art as isolated
images (especially now where they are reproduced
on everything) in practice his art – woodcuts and
prints – were part of a single sheet publication (an
inexpensive flyer or broadsheet that would be
widely read) that included written verse – a
popular poem - about the topic. The poem might
be turned into a song. In this way the images
became part of popular culture. Part of what
makes these images interesting is that they were
produced for widespread public consumption and
disseminated in an inexpensive
• A few other points. Posada’s work – woodcuts – were
not “tradition” in the sense that he was doing
something that had always been around. Instead, he
was producing art in a new style that felt old and
traditional to a Mexican public audience at the time.
A way for Mexicans to enjoy something that was at
once contemporary – offering comments on life in the
moment – but felt traditional.
• On another note – this powerpoint does not have my
voice over. It does have three youtube videos in slides
– so you have to run it in slideshow mode. It takes
time but it should work.
Video on Posada – Official from State of Aguascalientes. Has
imperfections but fun. You have to be in slide show mode for this
to work.
Some simple examples:
Conversation of the Good Calaveras & The Couple
Street Cleaning Calaveras
One of Posada’s most famous works. Intended as a satirical presentation
of the middle class of the era, and their fascination with European
fashion, after his death it became associated with the Mexican Day of
the Dead. Now such images – sugar skulls etc – are quite common. In
part, the ubiquity of this image comes from Posada.
Found as part of the (Aztec) Templo Mayor in Mexico City – maybe this is a stretch but it
illustrates that depictions of skulls and skeletons had been a part of Mexican cultural
production for a long time. There were other skeletons in popular culture – even other
artists who drew calaveras – but Posada remains the most important example.
Here is an example of one of
the broadsides – a
publication looking like it
would when it was printed
and sold. Here is Posada’s
version of Don Quijote – the
most famous literary figure
in the world of Spanish
literature. Notice the
difference between Posada’s
famous print (above) and
the one below (not sure of
the artist there).
On the bottom “Whoever
wants to read this loose
sheet. Five centavos is what
it cost.” That is a bad
translation that doesn’t
catch the rhyme.
José-Guadalupe Posada (1852–1913)
• Some basic facts:
• Posada was a Mexican printmaker, who had shown an early aptitude for drawing. He had some
schooling in the city of Aguascalientes and studied printmaking in the workshop of José Trinidad
Pedroza and publishing in his magazine El Jicote (The Hornet). Political pressure forced both Pedroza
and Posada to León, Guanajuato where Posada began wood-engraving. Posada moved to Mexico city
in 1888 and began to work for a printing house moving from lithography towards cheaper
printmaking on zinc, wood and type metal.
• Posada and his employer Antonio Vanegas Arroya printed flyers with Posada’s prints and verses for
the illiterate public. Posada also illustrated sensational stories in the paper Ejemplos, using the figure
of the devil to represent the temptation to commit serious crimes. He drew scenes from daily life,
festivities, brawls and traditional customs, and later portraits of well known figures such as political
hero Emiliano Zapata. He was occasionally jailed for his work.
• Posada’s fictional character Don Chepito was a way to criticize a social type (Don Chepito was also a
heavy Marijuana smoker – check out the eyes) but he is perhaps best known for his skeletons - the
calaveras. Calavera epitomize Posada’s originality. They draw on Mexican folk traditions and
anticipate Mexican mural painting of the 1920s and 1930s. They were skillfully executed, with
eloquent use of black and white as well as middle tones; proportion and disproportion were more
effectively used in his work on zinc, wood and type metal than in his lithographs.
• This was an edited version of Eisa García Barragán’s introduction to Posada, From Grove Art Online
• SOURCE: OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2009
http://www.moma.org/collection/artist.php?artist_id=4707
• I include Posada and his work in this course first
because the art is great. His unique prints capture
a Mexican cultural sensibility, even as they
contributed to the development of that sensibility.
His calaveras are eye catching and somehow
irreverent. Though we often see his art as isolated
images (especially now where they are reproduced
on everything) in practice his art – woodcuts and
prints – were part of a single sheet publication (an
inexpensive flyer or broadsheet that would be
widely read) that included written verse – a
popular poem - about the topic. The poem might
be turned into a song. In this way the images
became part of popular culture. Part of what
makes these images interesting is that they were
produced for widespread public consumption and
disseminated in an inexpensive
• A few other points. Posada’s work – woodcuts – were
not “tradition” in the sense that he was doing
something that had always been around. Instead, he
was producing art in a new style that felt old and
traditional to a Mexican public audience at the time.
A way for Mexicans to enjoy something that was at
once contemporary – offering comments on life in the
moment – but felt traditional.
• On another note – this powerpoint does not have my
voice over. It does have three youtube videos in slides
– so you have to run it in slideshow mode. It takes
time but it should work.
Video on Posada – Official from State of Aguascalientes. Has
imperfections but fun. You have to be in slide show mode for this
to work.
Some simple examples:
Conversation of the Good Calaveras & The Couple
Street Cleaning Calaveras
One of Posada’s most famous works. Intended as a satirical presentation
of the middle class of the era, and their fascination with European
fashion, after his death it became associated with the Mexican Day of
the Dead. Now such images – sugar skulls etc – are quite common. In
part, the ubiquity of this image comes from Posada.
Found as part of the (Aztec) Templo Mayor in Mexico City – maybe this is a stretch but it
illustrates that depictions of skulls and skeletons had been a part of Mexican cultural
production for a long time. There were other skeletons in popular culture – even other
artists who drew calaveras – but Posada remains the most important example.
Here is an example of one of
the broadsides – a
publication looking like it
would when it was printed
and sold. Here is Posada’s
version of Don Quijote – the
most famous literary figure
in the world of Spanish
literature. Notice the
difference between Posada’s
famous print (above) and
the one below (not sure of
the artist there).
On the bottom “Whoever
wants to read this loose
sheet. Five centavos is what
it cost.” That is a bad
translation that doesn’t
catch the rhyme.
Detail of the Don Quijote print.
A Jig Beyond the Grave (El Jarabe en Ultratumba)
Calavera of the Cyclists (Calavera las biciletas)
One of Posada’s common themes was a satirical look at the Mexican upper and middle class
and their. This is a send up on the craze for bicycles as something modern and novel.
Gran calavera eléctrica
Another take on modernity and modern fascinations. This time it is electricity and the
trolley car.
Some less famous images. Another
Posada character was - Don Chepito. Don
Chepito was a pothead, smoked too
much weed. I’m not making this up.
Below he is dancing like an idiot – notice
the crazy eyes. To the right he is jumping
into a bullfight - with predictable results.
Cogida de Don Chapito Toréro
The Disappointment Suffered by Don Chepito Marijuana – below right. Looks about the
way people do at parties after smoking too much. Again, compare Posada’s print to the
one on the left.
Here are some other examples
of Posada’s work.
Formidable Explosion en
Tacubaya D.F. …
“More than 400 dead and a
great number of wounded.”
Posada lived into the age of the
Mexican revolution, an
important historical
development politically and in
terms of national public
culture. The headline, “Assault
on the Cuernavaca Train by
those awful Zapatisa Bandits.
82 dead and 17 wounded!”
“Hand me down dandies” This might be a stretch but these illustrations remind me of the
Capoeira gangsters shown in drawings of the Capoeira presentation. The drawings were
produced more or less at the same time.
“The calavera of the morbid cholera”
An attempt at a transition
• Though it was not immediate, decades after his death Calaveras – skeletons
– inspired by Posada (and existing traditions) became ubiquitous. We know
them as sugar skulls, the emblems of the Mexican Dia de los Muertos. I
don’t know the whole story but part of this process was influenced by a
government sponsorship of traditional “folk” culture after the Mexican
Revolution. Something we will cover in the weeks to come.
• In the slides that follow I have put examples of these images that are
widespread in popular culture in the U.S. to demonstrate how far they have
spread. Also to point out the way that Latin American culture gets
reimagined, for good or for ill.
So here is a relatively recent move …
… and more recently there is this. Which is a great movie.
Or if you are into more adult
pastimes – there is this product.
Of course – there are more adult adaptations of Posada’s approach to images.
Notice this is basically the Don Quijote illustration with a rooster instead of
the horse (Rocinante).
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