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Finding aid for the José Guadalupe Posada prints, 1880-1943
960060
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Title: José Guadalupe Posada prints
Date (inclusive): 1880-1943
Number: 960060
Creator/Collector:
Posada, José Guadalupe, 1852-1913
Physical Description:
6.0 linear feet
(375 prints)
Repository:
The Getty Research Institute
Special Collections
1200 Getty Center Drive, Suite 1100
Los Angeles, California, 90049-1688
(310) 440-7390
Abstract: A largely self-taught artist who produced more than 20,000 prints, his most well-known pieces for the publisher Antonio Vanegas
Arroyo in Mexico City. Most were illustrated broadsides on brightly colored paper and sold by strolling vendors throughout
Mexico. Posada influenced the 20th-century Mexican muralists, for whom he was the quintessentially Mexican populist artist.
Collection includes newspapers, chapbooks, half-sheet and full-sheet broadsides, all of which are illustrated with Posada's
prints.
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Language: Collection material is in
Spanish; Castilian
José Guadalupe Posada was born in Aguascalientes, Mexico in 1852 and died in Mexico City in 1913. His life span thus encompasses
the last half century of the Mexican struggle for independence from colonial powers and the establishment of a liberal government
that would sign a democratic Constitution in 1917. It is frequently observed that Posada's work expresses the hopes and fears
of the Mexican people during this time of social upheaval, and that Posada's work, prolific, widely disseminated and extremely
popular, helped to educate a largely non-literate population about the urgent political issues of the day.
To a great extent a self-taught artist, Posada apprenticed, when he was not quite twenty years old, in the lithographic printing
shop of Trinidad Pedrozo in Aguascalientes, where he illustrated the independent newspaper
El Jicote. Forced to leave Aguascalientes for political reasons, Pedrozo and Posada went to León, where in 1876 Posada was put in charge
of the printmaking shop and in 1884 given a position teaching lithography at a secondary school.
In 1888 Posada moved to Mexico City, where he worked for various newspapers, including
La Patria Ilustrada. In 1890, Posada joined the staff of Antonio Vanegas Arroyo's publishing house, a position he would hold for the rest of
his life. Before moving to Mexico City, Posada had produced woodcuts or lithographs, but now he began engraving on type metal
and, after 1900, turned to relief etching on zinc. Working for Arroyo and other publishers as well, Posada produced prints
for newspapers, broadsides, and chapbooks on a wide range of topics, including fortune-telling, pet care, love, crime, miracles,
and politics. Most of these were printed on brightly colored paper and sold by strolling vendors throughout the country. It
is estimated that in his forty year career, Posada produced over 20,000 engravings.
When they were very young, Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco visited Posada in his workshop and deeply admired him. Later
Posada served as a model for the Mexican muralists and other artists, who emulated his use of an indigenous Mexican style,
commitment to a populist art form, and explicit political content. In 1920, Jean Charlot, a French artist collaborating on
a mural with Rivera, was intrigued by the broadsides sold on the streets that still bore Posada's prints. He was the first
to publish articles about Posada's work, theorizing its relevance for Mexican modernists. Since then, a quantity of critical
writings have proclaimed Posada Mexico's greatest printmaker.
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José Guadalupe Posada prints, 1880-1943, Getty Research Institute, Research Library, Accession no. 960060.
http://hdl.handle.net/10020/cifa960060
The Posada prints were acquired in five separate purchases. The first acquisition, October 1996, was assigned accession number
960060. Prints were subsequently acquired in October 1996 (960083), November 1996 (960085), February 1998 (P980002) and March
1998 (P970005, previously 970004).
In August 1998 5 separate acquisitions were integrated into a single collection. under the accession number 960060. Alma Dizon
did the preliminary cataloging and processing in Spring 1998. Annette Leddy completed it and wrote the finding aid in August
1998.
Scope and Content of Collection
There are 375 items in the collection, dating from 1888, the year Posada moved to Mexico City, until 1923, ten years after
his death, during which period the prints were reissued in various contexts. There are two sets of prints done much later,
as commemorative collections, one of which was published in 1943.
While the collection includes newspapers and chapbooks, the greatest portion of material consists of the half sheet and full
sheet broadsides. These broadside prints cover the full range of topics Posada illustrated, from freaks of nature, to firing
squads to lives of saints. Among these, thirty-three feature Posada's most famous character, the Calaveras, and fifteen feature
Don Chepito. There are also five games.
Most of the material was produced for the A. Vanegas Arroyo publishing house, but there are also issues of the newspaper
La Patria Ilustrada, edited by Ireneo Paz, and a chapbook series,
Biblioteca del niño mexicano, published by the Maucci brothers. The collection contains no prints Posada made while working in Aguascalientes or León.
Note: cetain items encompass two series, i.e., broadside and newspaper.
The prints are organized by format, and within that, arranged in rough chronological order. Many prints are not dated.
The collection is organized in four series:
Series I. Newspapers, 1880-1906
Series II. Chapbooks, ca. 1890-1923
Series III. Half sheet broadsides, ca. 1899-1943
Series IV. Full sheet broadsides, ca. 1892-ca. 1919
Posada, José Guadalupe, 1852-1913
Zapata, Emiliano, 1879-1919
Broadsides -- Mexico -- 19th century
Prints -- Mexico -- 19th century
Prints
Berdecio, Roberto and Stanley Appelbaum,
Posada's Popular Mexican Prints, New York, 1972.
Gamboa, Fernando and Carl O. Schniewind and Hugh L. Edwards,
Posada: Printmaker to the Mexican People, Chicago, 1944.
Museo Nacional de Arte,
Posada y la prensa ilustrada: signos de modernización y resistencias, Mexico, 1996.
Rivera, Diego and Fernando Gamboa and Jean Charlot,
Life and Work of the Engraver José Guadalupe Posada, Mexico, 1958.
Tyler, Ron,
Posada's Mexico, Washington, 1979.