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El Taller de Gráfica Popular and theChronicles of Mexican History andNationalismTheresa AvilaPublished online: 15 Jul 2014.

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El Taller de Grafica Popular andthe Chronicles of Mexican

History and Nationalism

Theresa Avila

El Taller de Grafica Popular (Workshop for Popular Graphic Arts), orTGP, is a graphic art collective founded in Mexico City in 1937. As acti-vists, the member artists of the TGP demonstrated and lobbied for theimprovement of social and political conditions in Mexico including pro-gressive labour laws, access to education and the control of naturalresources. Topics at the core of the organization’s prints include:Mexico’s divided heritage and fragmented history, the poverty andoppression of the Native American populations, human rights for thepopular classes, defending the land rights of the lower classes, and civilliberties for labour movements.1 The graphic work of the TGP engages,informs and educates the people of Mexico, as well as intersecting withinternational concerns.2 In alignment with international efforts, theartists in the TGP opposed fascism, encouraged socialism and were con-scious of the relevance of an image with regard to global affairs.

The work of the TGP circulated worldwide and involved internationalartists, as well as impacting on their work, which speaks to the organiz-ation’s far-reaching significance. The importance of the TGP’s contri-butions, however, tends to be understated in the art historicalliterature, which forefronts instead the work of twentieth-centuryMexican painters and photographers. Even when included, the TGP istypically presented as an adjunct to the Mexican muralists.3 Theseapproaches marginalize graphic art; by contrast, a number of recent exhi-bitions and their accompanying publications work to insert graphic artinto the narrative of Mexican art. A brief review of recent publicationsproduced outside Mexico analyses the narrativization of Mexicangraphic art history and makes evident that the TGP as an organizationis often discounted in terms of its contributions to the narratives ofnation and art in Mexico. To make the case for the significance of theTGP to the narrative of Mexican nation-building and modern art, Ipresent two examples by TGP member artists from the 1947 portfolio

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Vol. 28, No. 3, 311–321, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09528822.2014.930578

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1. For more information onthe various subjectsaddressed by the TGP, referto Hannes Meyer, ed, Tallerde Grafica Popular: doceanos de obra artısticacolectiva, EstampaMexicana, Mexico City,1949, pp 2–36.

2. In terms of identifying whothe TGP envisioned theirinternational audience to beone can turn to theirdeclaration of principles,which states ‘The T.G.P.lends its professionalcooperation to similarworkshops and culturalinstitutions, to popular orlabor organization and to allprogressive movements andinstitutions . . . The T.G.P.protects the professionalinterests of all artists.’‘Declaration of principles ofthe T.G.P.’, in Meyer, Tallerde Grafica Popular, op cit, p i.

3. Ellen G Landau’s Mexicoand American Modernism,Yale University Press, NewHaven, Connecticut, 2013,focuses on the impact ofMexican muralists onAmerican modernism, whichin turn undermines theparticipation of TGPmember artists withinmodern art networks and theTGP’s contributions to the

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Las Estampas de la Revolucion Mexicana (Prints of the MexicanRevolution).4 The scope of this aspect of the essay will focus on the mul-tiple and sometimes conflicting and contradictory narratives of theMexican Revolution.5

NARRATIVES OF MEXICAN GRAPHIC ART

Historically, the narrative of Mexican graphic art begins with the earlySpanish Colonial period and ends with Jose Guadalupe Posada (1852–1913).6 However, a shift has occurred and there have been efforts on mul-tiple fronts to extend this narrative. Notable endeavours that address theTGP within the larger art historical context of Latin American art haveusually resulted in a chapter or section of a book that introduces theworkshop and identifies group and individual projects. Examples ofthese efforts include the chapter ‘The Taller de Grafica Popular’ inDawn Ades’ Art in Latin America (1989) and a section entitled ‘TheTaller de Grafica Popular and Estampas de la Revolucion’ in DavidCraven’s Art and Revolution in Latin America, 1910–1990 (2002).7

However, few scholars probe beyond the general history and infrastruc-ture of the TGP, with an exception being Susan Richards’s unpublisheddissertation, Imaging the Political: El Taller de Grafica Popular inMexico, 1937–1948 (2001).8 In the end, Helga Prignitz-Poda’s publi-cation, originally written in German, but most accessible in its Spanish-language format, El Taller de Grafica Popular en Mexico, 1937–1977(1992), remains the single most comprehensive examination of the TGPin any language.9

A recent publication related to the TGP is Leopoldo Mendez: Revolu-tionary Art and The Mexican Print (2007) by Deborah Caplow.10 Thismonograph is dedicated to Leopoldo Mendez (1902–1969), a Mexicanartist who is primarily recognized for his graphic work and as a foundingmember of the TGP. Caplow organized the book into an introductoryessay and nine chapters arranged around crucial stages of Mendez’scareer. Caplow’s chronological presentation of Mendez’s life andgraphic work importantly allows for a methodical understanding andappreciation of his artistic development. Caplow’s book dedicateslimited space to the graphic work of the TGP as a whole and memberartists other than Mendez, even when it mentions group projects.Instead, the author focuses on the collective’s development as an organiz-ation and problems that arose amongst the group, which by the end of the1950s had led to the departure of key founding members, includingMendez. In fact Caplow seems to suggest that Mendez’s most significantwork was produced outside of the TGP. This abbreviated address ofMendez within the context of the TGP discounts how the collectiveserved through interchange and group projects to support Mendez inhis artistic development and diminishes Mendez’s important role andimpact within the organization. It is during the period he was affiliatedwith the TGP that Mendez flourished and was most prolific as agraphic artist, a point illustrated by the majority of the images addressedin Caplow’s book. Furthermore, a misleading element in Caplow’s exam-ination of Mendez’ life and work is the lack of attention regarding hisrelationship with Pablo O’Higgins. The two artists began working

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artistic developments inMexico and the UnitedStates. The number of artistswho went to Mexico to workwith the TGP makes clear theimport of the organization toa network of US artistsincluding: Pablo O’Higginswho was a founding memberartist of the TGP, active inthe group from 1937 to the1960s; Elizabeth Catlett,who moved to Mexico in1947 and joined the TGP in1948; Charles White who,with Catlett, travelled toMexico in 1947 and workedand studied with the TGP fora short period of time; andMariana Yampolsky, whowas part of the TGP between1945 and 1958 and the firstwoman to be part of thegroup’s executive committee.Other recent publicationsfocused on Mexicanmuralism and thedevelopment of the Mexicannation and modern artinclude Alejandro Anreus,Robin Adele Greeley andLeonard Folgarait, eds,Mexican Muralism: ACritical History, Universityof California Press, Berkeley,California, 2012, and MaryCoffey’s How aRevolutionary Art BecameOfficial Culture: Murals,Museums, and the MexicanState, Duke University Press,Durham, North Carolina,2012.

4. For an in-depthinvestigation of the TGP’sEstampas de la RevolucionMexicana, see TheresaAvila, Chronicles ofRevolution and Nation: ElTaller de Grafica Popular’s‘Estampas de la RevolucionMexicana’ (1947),unpublished dissertation,University of New Mexico,2013.

5. David Craven was one thefirst art historians to discussMexican art in relation tocompeting revolutions andmultiple narratives. SeeCraven, Diego Rivera asEpic Modernist, G K Hall,New York, 1997, and Artand Revolution in LatinAmerica, 1910–1990, YaleUniversity Press, NewHaven, Connecticut, 2002,pp 59–61, p 69.

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together as early as the 1920s and were equally involved as founders ofthe Liga de Escritores y Artistas Revolucionarios (League of Revolution-ary Writers and Artists) or LEAR and the TGP. In Caplow’s book,O’Higgins’ role in the TGP was minimized and the interactionsbetween O’Higgins and Mendez downplayed.

Within the TGP it was mandatory for member artists to attend weeklymeetings where group business was addressed and regular collective cri-tiques took place. I determine the physical space of the TGP’s studio as asignificant site among key Mexican artists where dialogue and exchangewere encouraged, social and political consciousness grew, and collabor-ations occurred. Ultimately, to not consider TGP member artists relation-ally significant to the development and output of graphic work byMendez and to focus instead on the workings of the organizationrather than on the art perpetuates a generalized treatment of the work-shop and limits meaning and comprehension.

The most recent and substantial writing on the TGP has appeared inthe form of publications that document exhibitions organized in theUnited States and Europe. Unfortunately, most of these catalogues offerlimited text, which is primarily documentary and descriptive of the devel-opment and organization of the exhibitions and the collections ondisplay. The exhibitions and catalogues I refer to include (in chronologi-cal order): Mexico and Modern Printmaking: A Revolution in theGraphic Arts, 1920 to 1950 (2006); Revolution on Paper: MexicanPrints 1910–1960 (2009); and Para la gente: Arts, Politics, and CulturalIdentity, Select Works from the Charles S Hayes Collection of TwentiethCentury Mexican Graphics (2009).11

Significant contributions of the catalogue Mexico and Modern Print-making: A Revolution in the Graphics Arts, 1920 to 1950 to thehistory of Mexican graphic art range from the inclusion of rare earlytwentieth-century Mexican graphic images to the invaluable overviewof US art galleries and dealers specializing in Mexican graphic art pro-duction. However, the concentration on the print collections of the Phila-delphia Museum of Art and the McNay Art Museum of San Antoniolimits the publication’s general application. In particular, the bookfocuses primarily on prints by the Mexican muralists.

The catalogue for the British Museum’s exhibition Revolution onPaper: Mexican Prints 1910–1960 (2009), with essays by Dawn Adesand Alison McClean, makes available scarce documentary informationpertaining to the development of the history of graphic art in Mexico.The essays go beyond the traditional narrative of Mexican graphic artby featuring discussions of little-known artists, including ManuelManilla, and the generally overlooked groups of the 1920s and 1930ssuch as El Estridentismo and ¡30 30!.12 And McClean’s discussion ofthe role of Hannes Meyer, Swiss architect and one-time director of theBauhaus (1928–1930), within the TGP provides new insights into therelationship between the Mexican collective and US institutions,patrons and artists.

Rarely do we see an exhibition dedicated to any one group of twenti-eth-century Mexican graphic artists. Instead, the trend has been toaddress artists individually or to address periods of art in which individ-uals and groups are presented, usually in a sweeping manner that bracketsthem all into a simplified genealogical narrative. This has routinely

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6. As early as 1870, Posadaworked in print shops andeventually ran his own,which producedadvertisements, leaflets,broadsheets and bookletson various subjectsincluding entertainment,natural disasters andcurrent affairs. Posada isprimarily recognized forhis humorous Calaveras,satirical skeleton figuresthat served as the figuralsubject in a vast amount ofhis work. Posada rose insignificance within thehistory of Mexican art inthe twentieth centurywhen he was rediscoveredby artists and a newaudience who consideredhim a model for and theforefather of twentieth-century Mexican art.Although it is commonlyrecognized today thatPosada was only one ofmany graphic artists activein the late nineteenthcentury, there is still muchrecovery work to be donein this period of graphic arthistory.

7. David Craven, in his essay‘The Taller de GraficaPopular and Estampas dela Revolucion’ in Art andRevolution in LatinAmerica, op cit, pp 63–71,addresses the TGP in thecontext of revolutionaryart in Mexico. Topics thatare briefly touched uponinclude: the muralists’relationship with graphicart, traits of the TGP’swork, the relationship ofgraphic art to massproduction and theagrarian class, and theTGP’s 1937 ‘Declarationof Principles’.

8. Susan Valerie Richards,Imaging the Political: ElTaller de Grafica Popularin Mexico, 1937–1948,unpublished dissertation,Department of History,University of New Mexico,2001

9. Helga Prignitz-Poda, ElTaller de Grafica Popularen Mexico, 1937–1933(1981, originally publishedin German), InstitutoNacional de Bellas Artes,Mexico City, 1992

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entailed an effort to narrativize twentieth-century Mexican graphic art asa sequential series of events that began with Posada, continued with theMexican muralists (specifically Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueirosand Jose Clemente Orozco), and ends with the TGP. This problematicapproach sets up a linear progression that presupposes a hierarchicalrelationship between the Mexican muralists and Mexican graphicartists. Such a historical construct asserts that Posada is the antecedentto twentieth-century Mexican art; that the Mexican muralists werecentral to the development of graphic art in Mexico after 1920; andthat many Mexican artists only came to graphic art because of the mur-alists. It also suggests that the muralists’ imagery was, along with that ofPosada, one of the significant models on which subsequent Mexicangraphic artists drew. One telling reason behind the development of thislinear chronology of Mexican graphic history is that most collections ofMexican graphic art include a substantial number of prints by theMexican muralists, despite the fact that the graphic oeuvres of themajor painters were actually small in size.13

The exhibitions of Mexican graphic art noted above were all devel-oped around existing collections that do more to reflect the predilectionsof collectors than to provide representations focused on building thehistory of Mexican graphic art. This results in shows and cataloguesthat largely mirror collectors’ preferences for graphic work by thebetter-known Mexican muralists and not the more politically chargedimagery that is so much a part of twentieth-century Mexican graphicart.14 Of course, positioning the muralists’ prints as the predecessorsand models for later graphic art has helped to elevate the significanceof these prints. In sum, to base an art historical narrative on the predispo-sitions of collectors and institutional collections misdirects scholarshipand undercuts a more expansive history of Mexican graphic arts.

In reality, after the Mexican Revolution, Mexican graphic art devel-oped simultaneously alongside Mexican muralism. Furthermore, manyof the TGP member artists worked on murals and many Mexican painterscollaborated in projects put out by the graphic art collective. Photogra-phers and those involved in Mexican cinema also intersected andengaged with painters and graphic artists. In fact, many of the artists inMexico during the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s participated in the recon-struction of the nation through their art.15 This is true for many of themember artists of the TGP, but what about the narrative(s) that theseartists engaged and constructed? One way to address this question is toanalyse work by the TGP.

THE TGP AND THE NARRATIVES OF WAR AND NATION

The Mexican Revolution was both a civil war and a class war thatoccurred between 1910 and 1920 and involved various political andsocial factions, each concerned with demands ranging from institutinga centralized democratic political system to supporting a decentralizedagrarian process of reform.16 Beyond the armed conflict emerged nationalinstitutions and programmes that promised to address and fulfil thedemands of the war. As a result, several national narratives ofthe Mexican Revolution emerged, each of which was altered by the

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10. For an expandeddiscussion of DeborahCaplow’s LeopoldoMendez: RevolutionaryArt and The MexicanPrint, University of TexasPress, Austin, Texas,2007, see Theresa Avila’sreview essay ‘LeopoldoMendez and Post-Revolutionary Art ofMexico’, in Third Text95, vol 22, no 6,November 2008.

11. John Ittman, Mexico andModern Printmaking: ARevolution in the GraphicArts, 1920 to 1950,catalogue for an exhibitionorganized by thePhiladelphia Museum ofArt and McNary SanAntonio Art Museum,Yale University Press,London, 2006. Dawn Adesand Alison McClean,Revolution on Paper:Mexican Prints 1910–1960, catalogue for anexhibition at the BritishMuseum, University ofTexas Press, Texas, 2009.Gina Costa, Para la gente:Arts, Politics, and CulturalIdentity, Select Worksfrom the Charles S HayesCollection of TwentiethCentury MexicanGraphics, catalogue for anexhibition at SniteMuseum of Art, Universityof Notre Dame, Indiana,2009

12. Tatiana Flores’s new book,Mexico’s RevolutionaryAvant-Gardes: FromEstridentismo to ¡30-30!,Yale University Press, NewHaven, Connecticut, 2013,is an essential offering toan otherwise under-examined era of graphicart in Mexico.

13. For example, Diego Riveraproduced a total of onlythirteen prints in hiscareer.

14. This trend is also evident inthe exhibition andcatalogue Mexican Prints:From the Collection ofReba and Dave Williams,which is described inpromotional materials as asurvey of Mexican printsfrom the 1920s to the1950s. The catalogue was

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individual interests and ideologies of successive post-revolutionaryadministrations. Artists of the TGP incorporated many of these paradig-matic perspectives into their broad pictorial productions.

The TGP’s 1947 portfolio Prints of the Mexican Revolution consistsof eighty-five linocuts that articulate and narrate Mexican history fromthe late nineteenth century up to the 1940s. The portfolio remarks onthree distinct periods of history and focuses on or around particular pol-itical figures and issues. Porfirio Dıaz and the period of his dictatorship,1879–1910, are addressed in prints one to nineteen. The violent phaseof the Mexican Revolution and the leaders of the war are presented inprints twenty to fifty-seven. Prints fifty-eight to eighty-five deal with theperiod after the war and the reconstruction of Mexico. Typically eachgroup of prints follows a sequential order that establishes a chronologicalnarrative. Each image is accompanied by explanatory text.

Alfredo Zalce’s image La prensa y la revolucion mexicana (The Pressand the Mexican Revolution) is print eighty-two in the portfolio series

Alfredo Zalce, ‘La prensa y la Revolucion Mexicana’, (‘The Press and the Mexican Revolu-tion’), Estampas de la Revolucion Mexicana, no 82, 1947, linocut, used by permission of the

University of New Mexico Art Museum, Albuquerque, New Mexico

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published by the AmericanFederation of the Arts inNew York in 1997 and theexhibition was on displayin 1998 at the BrooklynMuseum in New York.

15. On the subject of thecontact, inter-mixing andexchange that took placebetween Mexican artistsduring the 1920s and1930s, see the membershiprosters for the groups ElEstridentismo, ¡30 30! andLEAR, which are partiallyincluded in Dawn Adesand Alison McClean,Revolution on Paper:Mexican Prints 1910–1960, British Museum,London, 2009, as well asin Caplow, LeopoldoMendez, op cit, pp 11–30and pp 31–64.

16. For some, theestablishment of theConstitution of 1917marks the end of theMexican Revolution. Forothers, such as me, theassassination of Zapata in1919 signifies the end ofthe war. And for the rest,Carranza’s assassination in1920 is the final event ofthe violent phase of thewar. Nonetheless, theperiod after the war istypically framed by thepresidency of AlvaroObregon (1920–1924).

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and depicts ‘the’ Revolutionary Family at the top right, which includes,reading from left to right, Alvaro Obregon, Venustiano Carranza, Emi-liano Zapata and Francisco Madero. Portraits of these figures hoverabove a field of either sugar cane or corn.17 Suggesting the centrality ofthe agrarian issue to the Mexican Revolution, revolutionary figureswear the campesino or agrarian labourer uniform as they march outfrom the vegetation at the bottom of the image. However, in line withthe title, two figures on the left side of the image, both depicted with exag-gerated facial features, are surrounded by loose newspaper pages floatingaround them. The disfigurement of the figures associated with the pressportrays newsmen and journalists in a negative light. But the issue offreedom of the press is made more complex when one considers the con-tradictory support and oppression of the press by the revolutionaryleaders, a theme that is emphasized in the title and in the text that accom-panies the print.18 This text explains some aspects of the image:

The Mexican Revolution has been extremely generous with the press of theentire nation. It offered absolute freedom of expression, and has followedthrough on allowing it. Unfortunately, the majority of the national news-papers have taken advantage of the liberties provided thanks to the Con-stitution of 1917, and have become the most outrageous agents ofdebauchery. It is necessary to put an end to this outrageous abuse offreedom of expression, which is, as stated, an authentic liberty.19

The image seems to follow the text, but it diverges in its inclusion of theagrarian theme and in the obvious reference to the Revolutionary Family,each raising its own set of issues.

The close assemblage of these revolutionary leaders within the contextof the portfolio and print could be read to imply that these very differentmen shared common ideological values and were, thus, fighting togetherto achieve common goals in relation to land rights, campesino rights andfreedom of the press. In fact, the contrary is true and Zalce would surelyhave known this, as would have many of the TGP member artists. Actu-ally, each figure in the print represents a divergent group that was inopposition to the others during the Mexican Revolution and whose objec-tives remained in conflict not only during the violent phase of the civil war(1910–1920) but also long afterwards.

In terms of the revolutionary leaders included in the print and theirrelationship with the press, each had his own distinct points of conten-tion. The twentieth-century issue of freedom of the press is tied to theFlores Magon brothers who were persecuted by the Mexican governmentfor their attack in their own publications against then Mexican presidentPorfirio Dıaz (1876–1910).20 During the Mexican Revolution theMexican press became the main resource by which the urban populationof Mexico remained informed of ongoing events. The press, however, wasnot an objective news source, but rather controlled by the elite. What wascirculated most often served to shape and to promote particular ideol-ogies of distinctive political groups.

Francisco Madero offered financial support to the Flores Magonbrothers in their efforts to publish their publication Regeneracion in theUnited States.21 Madero supported freedom of the press, but this didnot make him any less of a target of the press. Throughout his time asa politician Madero was regularly and vehemently criticized, which is

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17. Sugar cane was a commoncrop grown in the state ofMorelos, Zapata’s homestate and an important siteof rebellion. Corn is a cropthat has legendarysignificance to theMexican people extendingback to Pre-Columbiantimes. Both crops alsosignify sustenance andlabour, particularly inrelation to the lowerclasses of the agrarianregions of Mexico.

18. In addition to oppressionthrough censorship, whichI address in this text, thepress and citizenshipdevelopment are also atissue. For an address onnation-building,citizenship andnewspapers see BenedictAnderson, ImaginedCommunities: Reflectionson the Origin and Spreadof Nationalism, Verso,London, 1996, pp 33–35.

19. The translation of this textto English and alltranslations of Spanishinto English for this essayare by the author, unlessotherwise indicated.

20. See Michael C Meyer,William L Sherman andSusan M Deeds, TheCourse of MexicanHistory, OxfordUniversity Press, Oxford,p 362.

21. Regeneracion was aMexican anarchist weeklynewspaper that functionedas the official organ of theMexican Liberal Party.The journal was foundedin 1900 in Mexico City bythe Flores Magon brothers,but persecution by theDıaz regime of the Magonbrothers forced a move tothe United States in 1905.See Meyer, Sherman,Deeds, The Course ofMexican History, op cit,p 362 and p 364.

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documented in the news journals and publications of his day.22 He waseither too reformist or too conservative, and most identified him asweak and inadequate. Generally, the source of complaints for conserva-tives was fear of political and social reforms that would result in theloss of their wealth and privileges. Conversely, the left criticized himfor only wanting modest reforms.

Zapata’s relationship with the press was equally problematic. Thepress, specifically in Mexico City, was engaged by the elite to criticizeand defame Zapata. They blamed him and his followers for most, ifnot every, wrongdoing that occurred in relation to activities in thesouth of Mexico during the Mexican Revolution, and labelled the revolu-tionary leader the ‘Attila of the South’.23 Although Zapata continued tobe discussed throughout the war, news articles and illustrations of himwere significantly reduced in number after 1911 as other concerns tookcentre stage.24

Madero’s time in office was cut short in February 1913 by GeneralVictoriano Huerta’s coup d’etat that culminated in the assassination ofMadero on 21 February 1913. Afterwards, Huerta assumed the presi-dency.25 The coup against Madero instigated the second course of theviolent stage of the Mexican Revolution that continued between themonths of February 1913 and July of 1914. In response to Huerta’streason Venustiano Carranza issued the Plan of Guadalupe on 26March 1913, which mobilized the Constitutionalist movement that wascomposed of forces, primarily from the north of Mexico, who wereunited in their opposition to Huerta. Thus publications for this periodof time were limited and officially dictated by how they related toHuerta.26 After Huerta’s defeat by Constitutional forces in July 1914,Carranza then controlled the Mexican press and directed its focus to apro-Constitutionalism, more specifically pro-Carrancismo, and anti-Zapatista reports. Thus each of the figures portrayed in Zalce’s printhad distinct experiences with the press, and the topic does not necessarilyserve to unite the men except to say they all had individual concerns aboutand relationships with the press, which is also true for all four figures andthe issue of land rights.

The agrarian issue affected multiple aspects of political and social lifein Mexico as it was connected to land theft, forced removal, use and own-ership of domestic resources, as well as development and modernizationof the nation, economic imperialism and disenfranchisement of agrariancommunities. Each of the revolutionary leaders portrayed in Zalce’s printhad a distinct position on agrarian reform, which can be related to theirsocial class: Madero and Carranza were from elite families and as ownersof large agricultural estates themselves were not interested in dismantlingthe hacienda system; Obregon was from the middle class and an urbanlabourer and somewhat disconnected from these concerns; and Zapata,as one of the leaders of the Mexican Revolution from a poor rural com-munity, promoted agrarian reform. For Zapata, land reform motivatedregional rebellion and demanded immediate attention. A clause inMadero’s Plan of San Luis Potosı regarding land rights motivatedZapata to join forces with Madero, until it became apparent to Zapatathat land reform was not a priority for Madero.27

The question of land distribution was recognized as an important issueby some of the revolutionary leaders, but sometimes only as a tool in

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22. Ross identifies a long list ofjournals that attackedMadero, including ElImparcial, El Diario, ElHeraldo, El Paıs, LaNacion, El Manana, ElDebate, El NoticiosoMexicano, Frivolidadesand Multicolor. SeeStanley R Ross, Francisco IMadero: Apostle ofMexican Democracy,Columbia University Press,New York, 1955, pp 231–232. Furthermore,Zapata’s Plan, whichdenounced Madero as atraitor to the Revolution,was made public andcirculated, with Madero’spermission, in Mexico Cityon 15 December 1911, inEl Diario del Hogar.Madero’s allowance ofZapata’s public critique ofhim speaks to his stance ona free press.

23. See the headline on the frontpage of El Imparcial, andthe accompanying article‘Zapata es el ModernoAtila’, 20 June 1911.

24. Events that dominated1911 to 1913 includedMadero’s presidency,1911–1913, a series ofrebellions instigatedagainst Madero by PascualOrozco and Felix Dıaz in1912, and a coup againstMadero in 1913.

25. For insight into Huerta’sefforts and regime, seeMichael C Meyer, Huerta:A Political Portrait,University of NebraskaPress, Lincoln, Nebraska,1972.

26. After Huerta’s coup, theMexican press that wassympathetic to Maderowas censored andrestricted by the newdictator. Only threeillustrated journalscontinued to be publishedduring early 1914:Multicolor, LaGuacamaya and Revistade Revistas. See CharlesCrosby Allen, TheMexican Political Cartoonfrom 1867 to 1920: AReflection of Unrest andRevolt, New YorkUniversity, New York,1976, p 357.

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managing the agrarian masses. For example, Obregon recognized landwas an important concern for the masses and that it proved useful insatisfying revolutionary groups as a reward for revolutionary serviceand as a payoff.28 During the Mexican Revolution, and more so afterhis death, Zapata was seen as an active agent and symbol of socialjustice and land reform, which marks him as an important link to therural masses of Mexico. Therefore, it became important to include himin any narrative of the revolution and particularly significant to includehim as a member of the ‘unified’ revolutionary family despite thisgroup’s complicated history.

Zalce’s image integrates the revisionist narrative in portraying theRevolutionary Family, while simultaneously revealing the contradictionsin this approach. That Carranza authorized the assassination of Zapata,however, strikes a major discord in the problematic narrative of unifica-tion of revolutionary forces and makes evident the oppositional relation-ship between these two men. Another example of conflict between thefigures of the Revolutionary Family lies between Obregon and Carranza.Although Obregon fought under Carranza beginning in 1912 during theanti-Huertista offensive, their relationship was one of mutual benefit andmistrust, and eventually Obregon became Carranza’s greatest opponent.Obregon’s affiliation with Carranza prevented any association withZapata during his lifetime. It was only after Zapata’s death in 1920that Gildardo Magana, Zapata’s successor, coordinated withObregon.29 The construction and evocation of a non-existent alliancethrough a fabricated Revolutionary Family was meant to promote themerger of disparate groups.30 The collapse of divergent groups produceda common history that implies that Mexico imagined itself as a unifiednation, particularly after the civil war, which indeed was not and is notthe case.31

Print eighty-four in the TGP’s portfolio Prints of the Mexican Revolu-tion, La industrializacion del paıs (The Industrialization of the Country),by Arturo Garcıa, further exemplifies how the TGP interpreted theMexican Revolution.32 The caption reads:

The government led by the lawyer Miguel Aleman is concerned with ful-filling an old desire of the people: the industrialization of the country.The Mexican Revolution in order to achieve economic independence ofour country seeks the industrialization of natural resources, in order toraise Mexico’s economic potential and thereby improve people’s livingconditions.

The text emphasizes that Mexico’s financial independence depended on thecountry developing its own industries utilizing its own natural resources. Inthis print, a dark and shadowy factory looms in the background. The sty-lized treatment of the sky possibly suggests the negative impact of industri-alization. The middle ground contains a crowd of figures wearing urbanattire and the uniform of the obrero, or urban labourer. The groupresembles an angry mob as they march towards the factory; the intensityof their emotions is emphasized through exaggerated gestures and expres-sive lines. The frustration of the group culminates with the figure in theforeground clutching a machete or large knife, as he points and marchestowards the factory.33 What are the people of Mexico, or more correctlyput, what were the TGP members angry about?

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27. Article Three of the Plan ofSan Luis Potosı addressedthe restitution of land toindigenous communities.A published copy of thePlan de San Luis Potosı isavailable as Francisco IMadero, Plan de San LuisDocumentos Facsimilares(October 1910), PRIComision NacionalEditorial, 1976. For auseful interpretation of thePlan, see Ross, Francisco IMadero, op cit,pp 116–117.

28. Linda B Hall, AlvaroObregon: Power andRevolution in Mexico,1911–1920, Texas A&MUniversity Press, CollegeStation, Texas, 1981, p 68

29. Ibid, p 241. Associationwith the Zapatistas aidedthe establishment of a newrevolutionary coalitionand guaranteed supportfrom the campesinos.

30. Thomas Benjamin’s studyasserts that a type ofMaster Narrative of theMexican Revolutiondeveloped and that aunified RevolutionaryFamily emerged and thatboth were accepted by allthose groups that wereincluded. See Benjamin, LaRevolucion: Mexico’sGreat Revolution AsMemory, Myth, andHistory, University ofTexas Press, Austin,Texas, 2000, p 68.However, art historianDavid Craven points outthat, although variousgroups after theRevolution did formprovisional alliances basedupon similar political and/or economic interests, thedivergent ideologicalpositions overall preventedany ‘harmonious orcomplete unification’among groups such as theMaderistas, Villistas,Carranzistas,Obregonistas, Zapatistas,Callistas and members ofthe Communist Party.David Craven, personalcommunication withTheresa Avila, February2008.

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Leaders of Mexico after the civil war maintained their allegiance tothe Mexican Revolution in order to assert legitimacy, but each did soin distinctive ways. Lazaro Cardenas (1934–1940), for instance,enacted progressive socialist programmes that were based on thedemands of the Revolution, including land reform and the nationalizationof resources, while Miguel Aleman Valdes (1946–1952) insincerelyevoked the Revolution as a political device, even as he opposed manyrevolutionary programmes. Aleman’s push for capitalist industrialismin Mexico was intertwined with a move away from agrarian reformand a move toward strengthening relations with the United States.Thus Alemanismo undermined much of what had been gained aspart of the socialist reforms that were fought for during the MexicanRevolution.

The TGP artists, when creating the Prints of the Mexican Revolution,were aware of counter-revolutionary changes made to the Mexican

Arturo Garcia, ‘La industrializacion del paıs’ (‘Industrialization of the country’), Estampasde la Revolucion Mexicana, no 84, 1947, linocut, used by permission of the University ofNew Mexico Art Museum, Albuquerque, New Mexico

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31. Anderson, ImaginedCommunities, op cit, pp6–7. Anderson definesnation as: ‘an imaginedpolitical community – andimagined as bothinherently limited andsovereign’. He goes on towrite: ‘It is imaginedbecause the members ofeven the smallest nationwill never know most oftheir fellow-members,meet them, or even hear ofthem, yet in the minds ofeach lives the image oftheir communion . . .

Finally, it is imagined as acommunity, because,regardless of the actualinequality and exploitationthat may prevail in each,the nation is alwaysconceived as a deep,horizontal comradeship.’

32. I have previouslypublished on print eighty-four of the TGP’sEstampas de la RevolucionMexicana; see Avila,‘Laborious Arts’, op cit,pp 62–82.

33. I read this figure as aMexican version ofFrance’s Liberte, and adirect reference to EugeneDelacroix’s 1830 paintingLiberty Leading thePeople.

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Constitution of 1917 by Aleman. In December 1946, Aleman’sadministration passed thirty-nine new laws that reversed land reform,privatized education, limited free expression and underminedexisting labour organizations.34 Article Twenty-Seven of the MexicanConstitution, which originally called for land reform and nationalizedMexican soil, was changed to protect private landholders from furtherland reform, thus allowing them to increase holdings and to revokeuncultivated lands from ejidatrios or collective farm owners/workers.Garcia’s image demonstrates the TGP’s response to Aleman’s policiesand actions.

At the front of its series the TGP recounted the tyranny of thethirty-four-year Dictatorship of Porfirio Dıaz (1876–1910) and, indoing so, the artists remind their viewers of the unjust policies, horren-dous practices of oppression and dire conditions that motivated rebel-lion, as well as establishing a foil against which they measured postwarpolitical regimes. In the final section of the portfolio, the TGPaddressed and critiqued the nation-building projects and practicesenacted by postwar political regimes. In print eighty-four the protestingfigures’ intent movement from the bottom left end of the image towardthe top right corner suggests they march towards things to come.However, the future is bleak in this tale and in the end the TGPcharged that Mexico in the 1940s was heading backwards andtoward the conditions that led to rebellion and that history was/isrepeating itself.

Most accounts of the Mexican Revolution and its legacy havegaping holes, freeze out nuances, and become historically veiled ritua-lizations of postwar dogma, which is also true of the TGP’s own pro-ductions. TGP artists’ edited and selected version of the MexicanRevolution brings in different elements and leaves out others; it alsoperpetuates some problematic notions and stereotypes. For instance,in its address of systematic practices of oppression the TGP heroicizedthe lower classes and even transformed them into symbols of particularissues, but I assert that it did not address them as complex figures ofhistory. Additionally, within the portfolio, as in most master narratives,members of the rural lower classes are treated as if they were a unifiedand one-dimensional group active during the Mexican Revolution andbeyond. Yet differences existed, regional groups disagreed and com-peted with one another during the rebellion, and not all participatedin the war or followed Zapata. Although there are wonderful aspectsand moments in the portfolio that challenged typical narratives regard-ing the war, in following the framework of master narratives the albumcame to feature and perpetuate many aspects in similar ways. Forinstance, most of the primary actors of the revolutionary drama aremen, meaning that the narratives of the war, including the TGP’s port-folio, follow the tradition of celebrating great men of history. Thisapproach makes ambiguous and obscures the presence and contri-butions of women and most of the rural poor. Furthermore, the port-folio’s uneven nature and the TGP’s skewed approach in definingrevolutionary and anti-revolutionary leadership serves as an exampleof invented history.

Discussion of the work of the TGP often celebrates its strong stancesand its call for social commitments and action, but scholars do not always

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34. See Stephen R Niblo,Mexico in the 1940s:Modernity, Politics, andCorruption, ScholarlyResources, Wilmington,Delaware, 1999,pp 83–237.

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question or analyse the relationship of this art to the political andsocial issues they present and the people they address. Furthermore,Mexican graphic art is not typically addressed when discussingnational art and the reconstruction of the nation after the MexicanRevolution. On these points, and others, scholars need to rub againstthe grain so that the seemingly smooth veneer of Mexican arthistory comes to more closely resemble a rough surface worked over bysandpaper.35

¡Que Viva La Revolucion!

I am indebted to Corey Dzenko and Gay Falk for their support and assistance in thedevelopment of this essay.

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35. Here I build on WalterBenjamin’s statement thatwe should brush historyagainst the grain, found in‘Theses on the Philosophyof History’, inIlluminations, HannahArendt, ed, Harry Zohn,trans, Schocken,New York, 1978,pp 256–257.

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