Jos Guadalupe Posada

273 great 19th-century woodcuts: crimes, miracles, skeletons, ads, portraits, news cuts. Table of contents includes Calaveras; Disasters; National Events; Religion and Miracles; Don Chepito Marihuano; Chapbook Covers; Chapbook Illustrations; and Everyday Life.

Funny Bones tells the story of how the amusing calaveras—skeletons performing various everyday or festive activities—came to be. They are the creation of Mexican artist José Guadalupe (Lupe) Posada (1852–1913). In a country that was not known for freedom of speech, he first drew political cartoons, much to the amusement of the local population but not the politicians. He continued to draw cartoons throughout much of his life, but he is best known today for his calavera drawings. They have become synonymous with Mexico’s Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) festival. Juxtaposing his own art with that of Lupe’s, author Duncan Tonatiuh brings to light the remarkable life and work of a man whose art is beloved by many but whose name has remained in obscurity. The book includes an author’s note, bibliography, glossary, and index.

This is a book about how the artist José Guadalupe Posada saw the Mexican country of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. His conception of Mexico was expressed through drawings of great vivacity, humorous and with doses of sarcasm. In this work there are more than 80 excellent engravings on different topics of national life, and a detailed description of each of them. Posada was a graphic chronicler, first of the Porfiriato and after the Mexican Revolution. With his drawings and skulls "Calaveras", he tells us the customs of the upper and lower classes of that Mexico of the past. The distinctive genre of his artwork is represented by skulls or "Calaveras", that is, those drawings of skulls and skeletons framed with humorous rhymes. Skeleton drawings adopt jocular and sarcastic poses. With those bones, Posada tells us that we are all dead under the living flesh. But the artist was not limited only to the "bony" characters, but also drew cartoons of real people. In his publications appear elegantly dressed men and women, as well as people in humble clothing, and even shows us characters in rags. The engraver also explored the field of journalistic information. His strokes were the illustration of the news: floods, comets in the sky, earthquakes... The crime tabloids exposed the bloody events, such as the murders and robberies that alarmed the country. The drawings of the Mexican Revolution show the former rebels of the regime, mounted on horseback and with their carbines; on the other hand, the dictatorship's soldiers appear fighting and firing against the guerrillas. José Guadalupe Posada was a pioneer of the Mexican nationalist movement; he had the desire to extract the most authentic from the country to show it with roughness and humor to all who wanted to contemplate it.

Monografie over leven en werk van de Mexicaanse prentkunstenaar (1902-1969), met de nadruk op de jaren dertig en veertig waarin hij politiek zeer actief was. Ook de invloeden van en naar andere kunstenaars uit zijn tijd komen aan bod.

Jose Guadalupe Posada is one of the most important graphic artists of modern Mexico. This book offers a close examination of his extensive broadsheet work in its original context: the murders, disasters, revolts, and popular heroes that engaged the attention of the public in Mexico City in the declining years of Porfirio Diaz's dictatorship. Patrick Frank analyzes the sources of Posada's style in Mexican and European prints and cartoons and shows how he altered them to fill his illustrations with vigor and life. Frank shows that Posada's outlook was that of the working class and that he depicted the stories of his day from a vantage point belonging neither to the defenders of the regime nor to its organized opposition. This book brings fresh insights to the work of a major figure in Mexican art history.