Mexican Prints at the Vanguard
Mexico has the longest tradition of printmaking in Latin America—and one of the richest. Prints reflect the country’s immense history and visual culture. In addition to the narratives they promote, prints have themselves instigated change, shaping Mexico’s competing politics, identities, and collective memories.
After the 1910–20 revolution, prints came to serve a broad democratic agenda that sought to educate the Mexican people through art. Art and politics became inseparable. Identity also became a pressing concern; the significance of pre-Columbian civilization and Indigenous Mexican traditions, which had largely been suppressed, were an area of renewed interest. Prints perfectly suited ideology and ambition: they were cheap, created in multiples, and easily disseminated. Because of their vast productivity and exploration of subjects that transcended local significance, the work of Mexican printmakers has resonated with audiences around the world and continues to inspire artists today.
The prints in this exhibition span two centuries, from around 1750 to roughly 1950. Nearly all are from The Met collection and were acquired through the French-born artist Jean Charlot, who spent most of the 1920s in Mexico. In 1928 Charlot moved to New York, where he befriended Met curators who were eager to expand the collection of Mexican prints and benefited from his knowledge and contacts.
Early Printmaking in Mexico
The first prints created in Mexico in the mid-sixteenth century were woodcuts and engravings for book illustration and devotional purposes; this continued until the mid-nineteenth century, when lithography became the principal medium. Lithographic workshops—based mainly in Mexico City—published high-quality prints that celebrated Mexican culture.
One of the main conduits through which cultural identity could be expressed, prints became instrumental to how Mexicans were perceived locally and abroad. Prints also addressed key social and political events in Mexico: the end of Spanish rule and independence in 1821; American intervention in 1846 (when the United States acquired enormous areas of Mexican land); the French occupation under Emperor Maximilian in 1864–67; and the appointment of Porfirio Díaz as president in 1876. Díaz remained in power for seven terms, until 1911, when he was ousted at the beginning of the Mexican Revolution.
In the second half of the nineteenth century, printed political caricature developed as a powerful tool to defend freedom of thought. This set a precedent that was taken up by one of Mexico’s best-known artists, José Guadalupe Posada, and his contemporaries.
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José Guadalupe Posada and His Contemporaries
José Guadalupe Posada has often been described as the progenitor of printmaking in Mexico. His animated skeletons—engaged in different activities and frequently deployed for satire and social critique—have played an important role in establishing the global identity of Mexican art. While the imagery is closely associated with Posada, it was his older contemporary Manuel Manilla who at an earlier point incorporated skeletons into popular prints, which were published by Antonio Vanegas Arroyo in Mexico City.
Posada’s career spanned a period of tremendous social and political change in Mexico. The authoritarian rule of Porfirio Díaz from 1876 to 1911, censorship of the press, new foreign economic interests, and the beginnings of the revolution in 1910 all provided the artist with rich source material. Posada is said to have created more than fifteen thousand prints that illustrated broadsheets, reports of crimes and natural disasters, and ballads (corridos) about popular heroes, bandits, and current events. Their purpose was to tell stories rather than to accurately report the news. In 1930 the artist Diego Rivera observed that through “analyzing the work of Posada, a complete understanding of the social life of Mexican people may be achieved.”
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The Mexican Revolution (1910–20)
The Mexican Revolution is the defining event of modern Mexico. The long and bloody struggle began on November 20, 1910, as a rebellion against the authoritarian rule of President Porfirio Díaz, then dragged on for ten years through competing narratives and shifting circumstances. Well over a million people are said to have lost their lives, and what was achieved remains a subject of intense debate. Despite the absence of clear ideology or consensus, a dominant theme was agrarian reform that demanded the redistribution of lands taken from peasant villagers under Díaz’s rule. The 1917 constitution is an important legacy. Its reforms were profound: it empowered the state to expropriate resources considered vital to the nation, established a progressive labor code, mandated free secular education for all children, and guaranteed the right of Indigenous peoples to self-determination.
In its immediate aftermath, amid efforts to politically and economically reconstruct the nation, “la revolución” was often invoked in order to instigate or promote change. Arts initiatives—especially mural programs—helped to visualize a sense of nationhood among the well-to-do urban classes. Prints played an important role in spreading narratives of democracy and social reform. The revolution’s ideas and symbols continue to legitimize political factions and serve as referents for activism in Mexico.
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Regimes of Reconstruction (1920s–30s)
After the armed phase of the revolution ended in 1920, the following decade witnessed the beginnings of reconstruction in Mexico as the government laid out a modernizing strategy. Sometimes described as a “second revolution,” the period is characterized by free-market capitalism, the redistribution of land back to farmers, and a cultural sea change that promoted secularism and core values associated with nationhood.
Public art was key to the state-sponsored cultural revolution. Mural painting has received the most attention—mainly because of its ambition and the fame of the artists involved, such as Diego Rivera—but an equally remarkable revival of printmaking took place. Prints embody Mexico’s political, social, and artistic depth. Woodcuts in particular represented new ideologies related to democracy, education, and the avant-garde.
Despite the optimism that permeated postrevolutionary rhetoric, attempts at national reconstruction collided with the reality of successive economic crises from the late 1920s. Education and public health campaigns in particular faltered. Founded in 1929, the Partido Nacional Revolucionario (PNR) was the driving force behind the social agenda and would (in different forms) hold the presidency until 2000.
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The Taller de Gráfica Popular (Workshop of Popular Graphic Art)
In 1937 artists involved with a group called the League of Revolutionary Writers and Artists formed a printmaking collective that the following year became the Taller de Gráfica Popular (TGP; Workshop of Popular Graphic Art). The TGP would become known as the longest-lasting artists’ collective of the twentieth century. Its activism and the number of artists involved make it one of the most fascinating groups in the history
of printmaking. One of the politically conscious founders was Leopoldo Méndez, who served as its leader until 1959. According to the workshop’s statutes, it was “founded with the aim of stimulating graphic arts production in the interests of the Mexican people, and to this end [sought] to bring together the greatest number of artists in a task of constant self-improvement through collective production.”
The TGP developed into an immensely productive organization, attracting artists from other countries (mainly the United States) and exerting influence internationally. Drawing on the tradition of José Guadalupe Posada’s illustrated broadsheets and the bold graphics of the newspaper El Machete —as seen elsewhere this exhibition—the TGP produced thousands of posters and flyers that express support for unionism, agrarian rights, political reform, secular education, and the fight against international fascism.
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The 1940s and Beyond
During the 1940s and 1950s, printmakers in Mexico continued to work in a rapidly changing environment. The preoccupations of the artists associated with the Taller de Gráfica Popular (TGP; Workshop of Popular Graphic Art)—the empowerment of workers and peasant farmers, national unity, social and political reform—slowly shifted to accommodate middle-class consumption. While denunciations of social injustice remained central to the repertoire of the TGP, especially through the end of World War II in late 1945, its production diversified.
In the interest of financial stability, the TGP established a fine-arts press, La Estampa Mexicana, in 1942 with the help of their business director, Swiss architect Hannes Meyer (former director of the Bauhaus). They produced elegant portfolios of prints on Mexican traditions and dress that were aimed at a foreign market.
Beyond the TGP, Mexican artists produced extraordinary prints for journals and books during this period.
Printmaking continues to be widely practiced in Mexico. Inspired by earlier traditions and often referencing revolutionary heroes, symbols, and themes, new communities of artists continue to create remarkable posters and flyers for public display.
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Corridor Walls
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