Jose Guadalupe Posada

Jose Guadalupe Posada Aguilar was a Mexican printmaker and political cartoonist who lived from 1852 to 1913 and is renowned for satirical, socially engaged work created through relief printing. Born in Aguascalientes City, he used imagery of skulls and skeletons, called calaveras, to critique government abuses and the everyday concerns of ordinary Mexicans, most famously in La Calavera Catrina, a skeletal female figure originally created to satirize Mexican elites who imitated European fashion and now inseparably linked with Day of the Dead celebrations across Latin America. Working across broadsheets, pamphlets and chapbooks, he combined lithography and engraving with what may have been photomechanical processes to produce an estimated twenty thousand or more images accessible to working class audiences. Though largely forgotten at his death, Posada profoundly influenced later Mexican muralists such as Diego Rivera and is regarded as a foundational figure in Latin American art history.