Jos

1
José Guadalupe Posada

• El día de los muertos

2
Las calaveras

• prints in which all the characters are skeletons
  The Spanish word "calavera" means "skull", and by
  extension "skeleton". In the present case it
  designates miming every conceivable activity in
  human existence. Most of these prints were
  prepared for sale around All Souls' Day, November
  2, when it is traditional to sell figurines,
  toys, cakes, candy, etc., in the form of
  skeletons, and to make elaborate offerings to
  dead relatives. Posada used his calavera prints
  as social reportage, as minifestos and as
  political and social satire.

3
La Catrina
4
These bicyclists each represent a contemporary
newspaper company between 1889 and 1895. All are
presumedly "racing" to cover a storyor perhaps
"competing" in the marketplace.
5
Don Quijote
6
Gran fandango y francachela de todas las
calaveras
7
(No Transcript)
8
Calavera de Oaxaca
9
"Calavera del gato morrongo" or the Calavera of
the alley cat.

• .

10
A cemetery, presumably crowded with victims of
the then fairly new electrical conveyances. There
were many disasterous accidents, one or which
involved the future artist Frida Kahlo, who spent
most of the rest of her life in a wheelchair due
to a horrible trolly accident in which her spine
was broken in several places. Frida Kahlo later
became an internationally acclaimed surrealistic
artist who was also known
11
Francisco I. Madero (1873-1913) was a wealthy
lawyer from the north of Mexico who by 1910 had
crystallized around himself the opposition to
Diaz's reelection. Escaping from prison to the
north, Madero slowly descended on Mexico city
after the outbreak of the Revolution (Nov. 20,
1910) and entered the capital in triumph in the
spring of 1911, becoming President a few months
later. He failed to rally the country around him,
however, and was forced to combat several
rebellions. One of his own generals, turned
against him, forced him to resign, then had him
murdered in 1913. One of the purposes of the
depiction of "calaveras" is to remind us, those
with power and those without power, that the end
comes for us all.