"Calaveras" in the Collections of Carlos Monsivais

Indisputably, the elements most often found in Posada’s work are his skulls or "calaveras", a journalistic form of graphic art that was already in fashion in the 1880s. Stimulated by Catholic traditions and superstitions surrounding the Day of the Dead in Mexico, it was reinvigorated by the popularity of José Zorrilla’s 1844 play, Don Juan Tenorio.

José Guadalupe Posada was born in Aguascalientes in 1852. During his childhood and adolescence, the struggle between the liberals and conservatives had reached its bitterest point: the three-year war and the French intervention.

Posada’s first drawings were his combat caricatures, published in 1871 in El Jicote—a satirical magazine (with 300 copies in circulation) published by the printer José Trinidad Pedroza.

The Museo del Estanquillo is not only home to skulls by José Guadalupe Posada. There are other artists such as Leopoldo Méndez who used the skulls as an image to represent inequality and the shortcomings of the Mexican people.

The artist was born in Mexico City in 1902 and studied at the Academia de San Carlos, where he learned from teachers such as Saturnino Herrán, Germán Gedovius, Ignacio Rosas, Francisco de la Torre, and Leandro Izaguirre.

He was a virtuoso engraver, both powerful and exquisite at the same time, who built a following and had an impact on several generations of graphic artists. He sought to disseminate and popularize art, and strived to make Mexico a better country.

In the Carlos Monsiváis collections there are also pieces by artists like Andrés Audiffred, one of the most important cartoonists of the twentieth century in Mexico.