Accidente
Date: 1934
Medium: Woodcut
Dimensions (cm.): 14.2 x 9.6
Alternate titles: El accidente; Accidente de trabajo; Obrero cayendo
Published edition:
Number of individual impressions unknown. Méndez [1949?] gives number as 200 approx.
Reprinted in 1943 in portfolio 25 Prints of Leopoldo Méndez: 100 impressions in numbered portfolios, 50 of them on China paper (described as “special imported chinese stock”), plus 3 impressions in unnumbered portfolios. Each impression signed in graphite, lower right, and annotated 7, lower right corner of sheet. Sheet dimensions 24.4 x 19.2 cm.
Contemporary publication: Unknown
References: Exposición de Homenaje 327; Méndez INBA 46, included in Prignitz 402-426
Commentary: Méndez created El accidente in 1934, the year he and other artists and writers formed the Liga de Escritores y Artistas Revolucionarios (LEAR). At this time, Méndez was addressing himself increasingly to the subject of the Mexican worker. He and Pablo O’Higgins, also a founder of both LEAR and the TGP, and Méndez’s closest friend and artistic collaborator for many years, expressed their obrerismo (pro-labor stance) in prints and murals throughout their time in LEAR, and they both continued to focus on the workers of Mexico after they established the TGP in 1937.
Accidente speaks to the high price of industrialization and the inequities of the oil industry in Mexico before the nationalization of Mexico’s petroleum fields in 1938. The woodcut depicts a worker falling upside down from an oil derrick. Below, the structure is surrounded by signs of industry: a stack of metal pipe, a boiler, and a platform beneath a ladder-like form, and a figure in a hard hat waves his arms in alarm. The print suggests a secular martyrdom – the worker’s body against the struts of the derrick is reminiscent of a crucifixion, and Méndez’s intended message seems to be that in Mexico industrial working conditions sacrifice workers to the interests of capitalism and big business, a condition to be overcome by unionization. (Deborah Caplow)
Catalogue record number: 342