Jose Guadalupe Posada

José Guadalupe Posada , 1852-1913, Mexican artist. Of peasant stock, he became one of the greatest popular artists of the Americas and influenced the generation of Orozco and Rivera. An imagery of violence was characteristic of him, and he used distortion, caricature, and vigorous lines and contrasts. Working mainly in lithography, woodcuts and metalcuts, and relief etching, he produced thousands of prints that were sold cheaply to the masses; prints are often called Posadas after him. He attacked the Porfirio Díaz dictatorship and was sympathetic to the workers and peasants who became revolutionaries in 1910. Posada also illustrated popular ballads and festivals and did a series on the dance of death and on crimes and executions.

Bibliography: See study by F. Gamboa (1944).

Posada, José Guadalupe (b Aguascalientes, 2 Feb. 1851; d Mexico City, 20 Jan. 1913). Mexican printmaker and draughtsman. His enormous output was largely devoted to political and social issues, revealing, for example, the dreadful conditions in which the poor lived. From 1890 his studio in Mexico City functioned as an open shop fronting the street, where he turned out sensational broadsheets and cheap cartoons aimed at a largely illiterate public. His work had the vigour and spontaneous strength of genuinely popular art, with the inborn Mexican taste for the more gruesome aspects of death—one of his recurring motifs is the calavera or animated skeleton. He made a major impression on Orozco and Rivera during their student days.

Posada, José Guadalupe (1851–1913). Mexican graphic artist. His enormous output was largely devoted to political and social issues, revealing, for example, the dreadful conditions in which the poor lived. From 1890 his studio in Mexico City functioned as an open shop fronting the street, where he turned out sensational broadsheets and cheap cartoons that spread among the illiterate throughout the country. His work had the vigour and spontaneous strength of genuinely popular art, with the inborn Mexican taste for the more gruesome aspects of death—one of his recurring motifs is the calavera or animated skeleton. He made a major impression on Orozco and Rivera during their student days.