La guerra fascista amenaza a México

Date: 1937

Medium: Lithograph

Dimensions (cm.): 38.2 x 32.8

Alternate titles: El fascismo sobre América Latina; El fachismo sobre América Latina; La amenaza del fascismo; La amenaza del fascismo sobre América Latina; Las víctimas del fascismo

Published edition: Unknown. Méndez [1949?] gives number of impressions as 30 approx.

Contemporary publication:  1938 Calendar of the Universidad Obrera (printed by offset). Some impressions from calendar have a yellow tint stone, and some do not.

References: Academia de Artes 1803; Exposición de Homenaje 526; Méndez INBA 68; Prignitz 354

Commentary: La guerra fascista amenaza a México (The Fascist War Threatens Mexico), of 1937, reveals Méndez’s concern about the coming world war. The artist combined the international and the regional; Surreal, bicephalic figures of Hitler and Mussolini loom menacingly over a Mexican family who sit outside their simple home in the middle of a corn field. The clownlike faces of Hitler and Mussolini mask their real intentions, their conjoined body holds a dagger in one hand. Soldiers in gas masks, wielding bayonets, stare ominously out of the darkness behind them. In this section, Méndez may have been influenced by Otto Dix’s series of prints, The War (Der Krieg), of 1924, based on Dix’s experiences of the First World War. In contrast, a fire lights up outside the door of the hut; the mother makes tortillas by hand, while the father, dressed in the traditional white clothing of the campesino, looks on from the doorway, one child awake by his side, the other sleeping. They lead the traditional life of the Mexican rural poor, with no trace of the world outside. Representing all defenseless civilians, they can be assumed to be illiterate and unaware of the imminence of the war. (Deborah Caplow)

Catalogue record number: 235