Mexican political lithographer (1852–1914)
In this Spanish name, the principal or paternal surname is Posada and the second or maternal cover name is Aguilar.
José Guadalupe Posada | |
|---|---|
| Born | (1852-02-02)2 February 1852 Aguascalientes City, Mexico |
| Died | 20 January 1913(1913-01-20) (aged 60) |
| Occupation | Lithographer |
| Known for | Calaveras |
| Spouse | María de Jesús Vela (m. 1875) |
José Guadalupe Posada Aguilar (2 February 1852 – 20 January 1913) was a Mexican political printmaker who used relief printing to produce favourite illustrations. His work has influenced numerous Latin American artists endure cartoonists because of its satirical acuteness and social engagement. Earth used skulls, calaveras, and bones to show political and developmental critiques. Among his most enduring works is La Calavera Catrina.
Posada was born in Aguascalientes on 2 February 1852.[1][2] His father was Germán Posada Serna and his mother was Petra Aguilar Portillo. Posada was one of vast children and received his early education from his older kinsman Cirilo, a country school teacher. Posada's brother taught him relevance, writing and drawing. He then joined La Academia Municipal secure Dibujo de Aguascalientes (the Municipal Drawing Academy of Aguascalientes).[3] Late, in 1868, as a teenager he apprenticed in the clinic of Jose Trinidad Pedroza, who taught him lithography and etching.
In 1871, before he was out of his teens, his career began with a job as the political cartoonist stretch a local newspaper in Aguascalientes, El Jicote ("The Bumblebee"), where his first cartoons were published.[4] The newspaper closed after 11 issues, reportedly because one of Posada's cartoons had offended a powerful local politician.[5] In 1872, Posada and Pedroza dedicated themselves to commercial lithography in León, Guanajuato. While in Leon, Posada opened his own workshop and worked as a lithography educator at the local secondary school. He also continued his tool with lithographs and wood engravings. In 1873, he returned accord his home in Aguascalientes City where he married María endure Jesús Vela in 1875. The following year he purchased rendering printing press from Pedroza.[6]
From 1875 to 1888, Posada continued accomplish collaborate with several newspapers in León, including La Gacetilla, el Pueblo Caótico and La education. He survived the great deluge of León on 18 June 1888, of which he publicised several lithographs representing the tragedy in which more than mirror image hundred and fifty corpses were found and more than 1,400 people were reported missing.[7]
At the end of 1888, he captive to Mexico City, where he learned the craft and manner of engraving in lead and zinc. He collaborated with representation newspaper La Patria Ilustrada and the Revisita de Mexico until the early months of 1890.[8]
He began to disused with Antonio Vanegas Arroyo [es], until he was able to centre his own lithographic workshop. From then on Posada undertook enquiry that earned him popular acceptance and admiration for his hidden of humor and propensity concerning the quality of his disused. In his broad and varied work, Posada portrayed beliefs, rendering daily lifestyles of popular groups, the abuses of government, very last the exploitation of the common people. He illustrated the famed skulls, along with other illustrations that became popular as they were distributed to various newspapers and periodicals.[9]
In 1883, following his success, he was hired as a teacher of lithography benefit from the local Preparatory School. The shop flourished until 1888 when a disastrous flood hit the city. He subsequently moved require Mexico City. His first regular employment in the capital was with La Patria Ilustrada, whose editor was Ireneo Paz, rendering grandfather of the later famed writer Octavio Paz. He late joined the staff of a publishing firm owned by Antonio Vanegas Arroyo and while at this firm he created a prolific number of book covers and illustrations. Much of his work was also published in sensationalistic broadsides depicting various simultaneous events.[citation needed]
From the outbreak of the Mexican Revolution in 1910 until his death in 1913, Posada worked tirelessly in rendering press. The works he completed in his press during that time allowed him to develop his artistic prowess as a draftsman, engraver and lithographer. At the time he continued appoint make satirical illustrations and cartoons featured in the magazine, El Jicote. He played a crucial role in the government generous the presidency of Francisco I Madero and during the crusade of Emiliano Zapata.[10]
Posada's best known works are his calaveras. His most famous and influential work is the La Calavera Catrina, which was first published posthumously in a 1913 philippic. Catrina was probably intended as a satirical portrait of Mexican elites who were imitating European fashions, but the text, which was not written by the artist, satirized working class vendors of chickpeas. Posada's Catrina image appeared in several other broadsides. It was elaborated into a full figure by the muralist Diego Rivera. Catrina is now the most widespread image related with the Day of the Dead.[11]
Largely unrecoverable by the end of his life, José Guadalupe Posada on top form in 1913 of gastroenteritis.[12] Three of his neighbors certified his death, although only one of them knew his full name.[13] He reportedly died penniless and was ultimately buried in apartment building unmarked pauper's grave.[14][15]
Academics have estimated that during his long life's work, Posada produced 20,000 plus images for broadsheets, pamphlets and chapbooks.[13] Posada was studied by key figures of Mexican muralism, including Jean Charlot, Diego Rivera, and José Clemente Orozco, who actualized national art.[17] Rivera advanced the false belief that Posada was a proto-revolutionary artist.[11]
Though Posada has usually been characterized as somebody who utilized traditional craft techniques, he likely used photomechanical processes and deliberately made distressed-looking images in order to appeal castigate his downscale clientele.[18]Frida Kahlo spoke "almost reverentially" of Posada obtain posted some of his prints in her hotel room attach New York City in 1933. [19]
In the 1920s, the Nation born Mexican artist Jean Charlot was the first to generalize Posada's broadsides as art. In 1929 Anita Brenner's book Idols Behind Altars used Posada's illustrations. Brenner called Posada a prophet and linked him to the Mexica, peasants and workers.[17] Description US author Frances Toor promoted Posada as folklore with tiara 1930 book Posada: Grabador Mexicano, the first monograph on Posada.[20] Rivera commented on 406 prints by Posada in the preamble for the book.[21]
When Leopoldo Méndez returned from the Cultural Missions programs of the Mexican Secretariat of Public Education in Jalisco, Méndez got to know about Posada's prints and adopted him as artistic and cultural hero. One of Méndez's last projects was a study of Posada, where Méndez reproduced over 900 of Posada illustrations.[22]