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Artist Profile: José Guadalupe Posada
September 30, 2024
Mexican artist and intellectual José Guadalupe Posada was a prolific lithographer and engraver, who lived and worked in a period of Mexican history characterized by social and political upheaval. He was born in 1852 and spent much of his childhood drawing portraits and illustrations. After attending an art academy in his hometown of Aguascalientes, he started working in the nearby city of Leon. Eventually, he became the head caricaturist of El Jicote (The Wasp), a political newspaper. In 1888, a devastating flood forced him to leave home.
Posada worked tirelessly to create images sensationalizing the news and social issues of the day. He produced inexpensive broadsides that most Mexicans, including the illiterate, could afford and understand. Posada is most famous for using his calaveras, depictions of skulls and skeletons, to satirize and mock the corruption of the wealthy and political elite.
Posada died in 1913, before the end of the Mexican revolution, poor and relatively unknown. It wouldn’t be until the 1920s and later that he would become recognized as one of Mexico’s greatest printmakers of all time.
The GVSU Art Museum Print and Drawing Cabinet includes over 350 images by Posada including original prints and restrikes. The restrike prints were created using the original plates and press used by Posada, today owned by the family of Antonio Vanegas Arroyo, a publisher and printer with whom Posada worked.
Explore more works in the collection by José Guadalupe Posada.
José Guadalupe Posada, Aqui Esta Calavera Del Editor Popular A. Vanegas Arroyo (Here is the Skull of Popular Editor A. Vanegas Arroyo), restrike print, 2004, 2005.0001.1.
José Guadalupe Posada, Las Bicicletas (The Bicycles), restrike print, 2004, 2005.00161.1.
José Guadalupe Posada, Calavera Tapatia (Skull from Guadalajara), restrike print, 2004, 2005.00185.1.