José Guadalupe Posada and the Mexican Broadside

Bilingual (Spanish/English)
José Guadalupe Posada (1851–1913), one of Mexico’s most important graphic artists, influenced the generation who lived through and pictured the Mexican Revolution. His powerful and visually arresting newspaper illustrations and woodcut broadsides––whose subjects range from news to religion, from corridos (escapades of bandits and heroes) to calveras (skeletal figures associated with the Day of the Dead)––reflect indigenous folk-art traditions. In these graphically powerful penny handbills, Posada responded to the political and social issues of his day, addressed cultural ills, and spread moral ideas.
Focusing on the Art Institute of Chicago’s impressive and previously unpublished collection of prints by Posada, this handsome book examines his work and places it in the larger context of Mexican printmaking in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. With beautiful reproductions of Posada’s forceful and lively prints, as well as fascinating technical analyses of these works, the book is essential to anyone interested in the graphic arts of Latin America.