Skeleton on horseback trampling others beneath him (Corrido of Stalingrad)
Méndez is one of the best-known Mexican printmakers and a founding member of the Taller de Gráfica Popular (Workshop of Popular Graphic Art). Politics was central to his life and his art. He was committed to making prints supporting left-wing ideologies and advocating social reform. In this print, Fascist skeletons are crushed by the horseman of the apocalypse wielding a saber and holding a banner bearing a hammer and sickle, the insignia of the Mexican Communist Party. The skeletons derive from the tradition of calaveras made popular by José Guadalupe Posada, and the blank space at the lower left was intended for text. In other impressions this text has the title 'Corrido de Stalingrado.'
Artwork Details
- Title: Skeleton on horseback trampling others beneath him (Corrido of Stalingrad)
- Artist: Leopoldo Méndez (Mexican, 1902–1969)
- Date: 1942
- Medium: Linocut
- Dimensions: Sheet: 17 7/8 × 15 9/16 in. (45.4 × 39.5 cm)
Image: 11 3/8 x 8 1/2 in. (28.9 x 21.6 cm) - Classification: Prints
- Credit Line: The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1946
- Object Number: 46.46.482
- Curatorial Department: Drawings and Prints
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