Monografie over leven en werk van de Mexicaanse prentkunstenaar (1902-1969), met de nadruk op de jaren dertig en veertig waarin hij politiek zeer actief was. Ook de invloeden van en naar andere kunstenaars uit zijn tijd komen aan bod.

Published in conjunction with an exhibition held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Sept. 13, 2011-Mar. 4, 2012.

Established in Mexico City in 1937, the Taller de Gráfica Popular (Popular Graphic Art Workshop) sought to create prints, posters, and illustrated publications that were popular and affordable, accessible and politically topical, and above all formally compelling. Founded by the printmakers Luís Arenal, Leopoldo Méndez, and American-born Pablo O'Higgins, the TGP ultimately became the most influential and enduring leftist printmaking collective of its time. The workshop was admired for its prolific and varied output and for its creation of some of the most memorable images in midcentury printmaking. Although its core membership was Mexican, the TGP welcomed foreign members and guest artists as diverse as Josef Albers and Elizabeth Catlett. The collective enjoyed international influence and renown and inspired the establishment of similar print collectives around the world. This bilingual publication features twenty-four works representing the finest linocuts and lithographs from the heyday of this important workshop. These arresting images are drawn from the significant holdings of TGP works in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago.

This collection contains 25 wood engraving prints by Leopoldo Méndez, published in a limited edition by La Estampa Mexicana in 1943. This is No. 51 of the 100 copies produced. The prints are with their original woven fiber portfolio which includes an introduction by Juan de la Cabada and an index. Each print is signed by the artists. The subject of the prints are largely images of Mexican laborers engaged in their various tasks, such as horsemen, newsboys, weavers, chicle gathers, and Fascism and Nazisim, and popular resistance in Mexico. Some prints were created before 1943. The folio is a compilation of works by Méndez. The collection includes one extra print which was a bookplate created by Méndez for Harold Leonard (also signed by the artist). There is a brief biography of the artist in Spanish and English by Juan de la Cabada.

"Written by an international team of illustration historians, practitioners, and educators, History of Illustration covers image-making and print history from around the world, spanning from the prehistoric to the contemporary. With hundreds of color image, this book to contextualize the many types of illustrations within social, cultural, and technical parameters, presenting information in a flowing chronology. This essential guide is the first comprehensive history of illustration as its own discipline. Readers will gain an ability to critically analyze images from technical, cultural, and ideological standpoints in order to arrive at an appreciation of art form of both past and present illustration"--