A las puertas de Madrid
Date: 1938
Medium: Lithograph
Dimensions (cm.): Information to be added
Variants:
Méndez made two versions of this lithograph, each with slight differences from the other. The reason for the two versions is unknown.
Alternate titles: La “toma” de Madrid; La “toma” de Madrid en noviembre de 1936
Published edition: 15 numbered impressions. Number of unnumbered impressions unknown.
Contemporary publication (of the alternate version):
La España de Franco (see published edition, above)
Revista 1945 1 (noviembre 1945)
El libro negro del terror nazi en Europa, p. 93
References: Méndez INBA 65 (?)
Selected additional references (illustrated): Reyes Palma 1994, pl. 65.
Commentary: In 1939, toward the end of the Spanish Civil War, Méndez, Luis Arenal, Raúl Anguiano and Xavier Guerrero published a portfolio of fifteen lithographs, La España de Franco (Franco’s Spain). Because of Franco’s fierce anti-Communism, and his alliances with Hitler, Mussolini, and the Catholic Church, reactionary forces in Mexico applauded his coming victory. The Spanish Civil War disappointed and discouraged the international Left, and the Second World War loomed more ominously after the fall of Spain. The response of the Taller was to caricaturize the victors in an effort to diminish them psychologically.
Méndez’s lithograph, La toma de Madrid en noviembre 1936 (The Taking of Madrid in November 1936), also called A las puertas de Madrid (At the Gates of Madrid) refers to the siege of Madrid by Franco’s forces. Méndez portrayed a half-sized Generalissimo Franco at the head of his army, with swastika and fasces on flags that form a black cloud over the scene. A large spiked helmet obscures Franco’s face, and he marches in a goose step. Méndez used multiple images of Franco’s legs to indicate motion, a device reminiscent of both Futurist painting and cinematography. A bishop struts to Franco’s right, brandishing his rood, with a helmet with fasces and an axe in place of his miter. North African troops surround these two central figures.
The procession is going in a circle – Méndez portrayed Franco’s triumphant entry into the conquered city as a pathetic farce in a surreal landscape, rather than the victory it really was. In the distance he included the sketchy outlines of a settlement that looks like a Mexican town, reminiscent of Orozco’s Casas y mujeres. The style of Orozco is especially evident in this work, in the expressionistic use of lithographic line, the dynamic repetition of forms and the distortion of the human body. (Deborah Caplow)
Catalogue record number: 859