Americas Collection
Jose Guadalupe Posada

José Guadalupe Posada, La Calavera del Colera Morbo, black and white woodcut, 6 5/8 x 10 1/8 inches. Collection of the ASU Art Museum, purchased with funds provided by the American Art Heritage Fund 1993.009.000.

About the Artist

There is a long tradition in Mexican art to lampoon saints and sinners alike. Jose Guadalupe Posada (1851-1913) is renowned for his political and satirical skeleton prints or calaveras (which literally means "skulls") that criticized both the secular and the sacred. Many of Posada's calaveras reflected the public's dissatisfaction with the corrupt regime of the dictator Porfirio Diaz, while others poked fun at the everyday fears and concerns held by ordinary people. Posada's skeletal scenes were used to illustrate mock obituaries aimed at persons from all levels of society but Posada's most critical calaveras disparaged the autocratic rule of Diaz and his unscrupulous upper-class cronies. Posada's images also accompanied the lyrics to popular songs or revolutionary ballads known as "corridos." Printed on inexpensive, brightly colored paper and costing only a few centavos, these broadsheets were sold on street corners to an audience that was largely illiterate. Those without the ability to read could still grasp the meaning intended by the phony obituaries or the rousing corridos through the benefit of Posada's expressive skeletal forms.

The use of skeletal imagery in art dates from the pre-Hispanic civilizations of Mesoamerica and later gained satirical meaning through popular prints executed in nineteenth century Mexico. By virtue of its subject matter, imagery and popular artistic medium, the artwork of Jose Guadalupe Posada represents a form of caricature directly connected to the art and mind of Mexico's common people. Posada was born in 1851 in the Mexican state of Aguascalientes. He later became a teacher of the artistic print medium of lithography. In 1887 he moved to Mexico City where he worked as a newspaper illustrator until his death in 1913. Always attempting to find a more rapid and efficient method of reproducing his images for the masses, Posada experimented with different types of print technology. Early on Posada employed a method known as wood cutting by which he would carve his calavera images onto wooden blocks for printing. Toward the end of his career, Posada discovered a way to use acid-resistant ink to create free hand drawings on metal plates which were then "bitten" or dissolved with acid so that only the drawn image stood out from the surface. This process known as relief etching allowed Posada greater freedom of expression and enabled him to print rather quickly, positive images composed of black lines. These later calaveras are noticeable different in terms of style and complexity from Posada's earlier wood cut ones.

Posada's illustrations appeared in many anti-Diaz newspapers, but he executed the bulk of his illustrations for the populist publisher Antonio Vanegas Arroyo who appears in a calavera dedicated to his honor. Posada's caricatures, like the publications they appeared in, were instrumental in molding public opinion against the dictator Diaz and contributed to his eventual overthrow by the Mexican Revolution. The prints of Jose Guadalupe Posada also helped to inspire the work of the revolutionary muralists Diego Rivera and Jose Clemente Orozco. Posada not only addressed the issues of a society in conflict prior to the revolution, he perpetuated the role of art as an outlet for protest within Mexican society.

Chris Ibarra, Curatorial Intern
Graduate student, Art History.

For further reading
Ades, Dawn. "Posada and the Popular Graphic Tradition." Art in Latin America: The Modern Era, 1820-1980. Yale University Press, New Haven. 1989.
Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes (INBA). Posada y La Prensa Illustrada: Signos de Modernizacion y Resistencia. Mexico, D.F. 1996.
Masuoka, Susan. "Joking With Death: Skulls and Skeletal Forms, Common Elements of Popular Art in Mexico." Print. vol. 38 May/June '84. P. 78-83.
Myers, Bernard S. "A Culture in Revolution." Mexican Painting in Our Time. Oxford U. Press, New York 1956.
Carlos Macazaga Ramirez de Arellano and Cesar Macazaga Ordono, eds. Las Calaveras Vivientes de Posada. Editorial Cosmo. 1977.
Rothstein, Julian. Posada: Messenger of Mortality. Redstone Press, London. 1989.
Schmeckbebier, Laurence E. Modern Mexican Art. The U. of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis. 1939.

[top]

ASU | Herberger College | ASU Art Museum | Internal Resources | Staff Directory