Asesinato de Jesús R. Menéndez en Cuba

Date: 1948

Medium: Linocut

Dimensions (cm.): 21.9 x 29.9

Alternate titles: Unknown

Published edition: Portfolio, C.T.A.L. 1938-1948. Diez grabados de los artistas del Taller de Gráfica Popular en México en homenaje al III Congreso General. According to Prignitz 1992, "Se publicó en marzo de 1948: trescientos ejemplares numerados. Impresos en la Imprenta Galatea, sobre papel Parsons Diplomat Parchment. Formato del álbum: 34:41 cms. Con un breve prólogo del TGP. Diseño de la portada: Hannes Meyer."

Contemporary publication: Unknown

References: Exposición de Homenaje 532. Prignitz 744

Commentary:  Jesús R. Menéndez was a leader of the sugar workers union in Cuba, assassinated in January 1948. Asesinato de Jesús R. Menéndez en Cuba (Murder of Jesús R. Menéndez in Cuba), created in memory of a slain Cuban labor leader, draws on European and Mexican traditions of funerary portraits. The martyred activist lies in a shroud, with a standard of the Confederación de Trabajadores Cubanos (Confederation of Cuban Workers, CTC) behind him, and a mourning woman in a shawl embraces him in a kind of Pietà. A closer look reveals that the banner is actually the first of a multitude of similar banners, suggestive of a labor demonstration and implying the continuing political work of Menéndez’s comrades. Foliage behind the dead man’s head suggests a cluster of laurel leaves, symbols of honor. Both the composition and feeling of the image recall Kollwitz’s woodcut Memorial for Karl Liebknecht of 1919, with the same eulogistic theme of grief for a slain hero. In Kollwitz’s the corpse is depicted in a stiff and hieratic manner, but as Kollwitz did, Méndez used light and dark areas to highlight the body and its surroundings, and expressed sorrow through a single figure bending and embracing the dead man. (Deborah Caplow)

Catalogue record number: 179