Artist: José Guadalupe Posada (Mexican, 1851–1913)
This Posada print, "The León Flood," is the cover image for a collection of modern songs. Type-metal engraving. Signed.
Antonio Vanegas Arroyo (Firm) - Posada, José Guadalupe, ca. 1880-1910.
Fair academic use only. Posted according to section 108 of title 17 of the United States Code, §201.14: Warnings of copyright for use by individual libraries and archives.
Attribution:
Antonio Vanegas Arroyo (Firm) - Posada, José Guadalupe, ca. 1880-1910.
Artist: José Guadalupe Posada (Mexican, 1851–1913)
Cancionero.
Fair academic use only. Posted according to section 108 of title 17 of the United States Code, §201.14: Warnings of copyright for use by individual libraries and archives.
Attribution:
Antonio Vanegas Arroyo (Firm) - Posada, José Guadalupe, ca. 1880-1910.
This is the panel 1 of 3 that was created for this exhibition.
In the pantheon of the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century artists who represent Mexico and Mexican art, the artwork of José Guadalupe Posada stands out as a bright constellation that continues to shine the light on important stories through woodcuts, imprints, and engravings. He was born on February 2, 1852, in Aguascalientes.
Posada joined the publishing house of Antonio Vanegas Arroyo in 1888 as an illustrator and engraver. There he met Manuel Alfonso Manilla (1830-95), and, until 1899, the two men shared engraving duties. They worked so closely together that some works are hard to attribute definitively to one artist or the other. Posada worked on images that appeared in newspapers and continued to create woodcut images, with subjects ranging from news to religion. Posada also used the imagery of skulls. The skull, or la Calavera, was adopted by the artist to illustrate the hybridity of Mexican culture. It is thought that Posada was responsible for images published in over fifty Mexico City-based periodicals, some of which are held by The Bancroft Library.
Posada illustrated many small booklets, typically less than twenty pages long and measuring roughly nine centimeters by twelve centimeters. These small publications are known in English as chapbooks; in Spanish, they are known as Cuadernos. The chapbooks covered a variety of subjects including recipes, short stories, songs, and plays. Front covers usually were illustrated with an image related to the content of the chapbook.
Between 1899 and 1901, Posada illustrated for the Biblioteca del Niño Mexicano series — Posada’s only series that appeared in full color. There were a total of 110 chapbook-sized booklets printed. The booklets, written by Heriberto Frías, tell the history of Mexico through short fablelike stories that include Moctezuma and Aztec society before the arrival of the Spanish; the Spanish conquest and the role of the Catholic Church; and the struggle for Mexican independence.