Mexican engraver · 1852–1913

José Guadalupe Posada

José Guadalupe Posada was born in Aguascalientes in 1852 and died in Mexico City in 1913. He learned the craft in the workshop of the lithographer José Trinidad Pedroza and, after a stay in León, settled in the capital, where he worked for more than twenty years for the press of the publisher Antonio Vanegas Arroyo.

For that press he illustrated thousands of broadsides, corridos, chapbooks, prayers and sensational news sheets sold for a few cents in the streets. His engravings depicted crimes, disasters, festivities, pulquerías and everyday life in the Porfiriato, and turned the calavera into social commentary full of humor and irony.

José Guadalupe Posada's work was rediscovered in the 20th century by artists such as Jean Charlot, Diego Rivera and Leopoldo Méndez, who recognized him as a forerunner of modern Mexican graphic art.

The National Museum of the Graphic Arts holds original plates engraved by Posada and prints of his time. Each piece has its record with photographs, dimensions and description.