Construyendo escuelas

Date: 1931

Medium: Woodcut

Dimensions (cm.): 25.6 x 9.1

Alternate titles: Constructores; Construcción de escuelas

Published edition: Unknown

Contemporary publication: El sembrador  (issue unknown)

References: Academia de Artes 1906; Exposición de Homenaje 392; Méndez INBA 54

Selected additional references (illustrated): Carrillo 1984, pl. 27

Commentary: Construyendo escuelas is one of the many images connected to Méndez’s life-long involvement with public education in Mexico. The print reflects the artist’s (and Mexico’s) aspirations for a universal educational system that would promote a new cultural equality, creating a modern Mexican national identity in accordance with the goals of the Revolution. 

Since the early 1930s Méndez had been contributing images to publications of the Secretariat of Education (SEP) such as El maestro rural and El sembrador, which were intended for an audience of rural schoolteachers and campesinos, as well as members of the SEP’s Cultural Missions, which sent teams of educators to rural areas to train teachers, parents and students in a variety of life skills. Perhaps produced for one of these publications, the simple woodcut is an optimistic depiction of communal work, portraying campesinos building a new school made of sturdy cement and brick for their children. The print symbolizes the entire project of rural school construction initiated after the Revolution. Following the vision of Minister of Education José Vasconcelos, who conceived of a vast system of education, public libraries and the arts, thousands of schools were built throughout Mexico in the 1920s and ’30s. But on closer inspection, the print is likely a portrayal of the work of the Cultural Missions. In the print, three skilled trades workers train members of the community in the building of a simple rural school; in the foreground a carpenter in overalls planes a window frame, in the middleground a bricklayer mixes cement for laying bricks, and in the background a painter is brushing paint on a wall. Méndez tilted the school and left off the roof to display the three simulataneous activities; each of the demonstrations is intently observed by groups of white-shirted men – the onlookers are likely the parents of the children who will benefit from the efforts and knowledge brought by the misioneros. 

Composed of eccentric angles, the woodcut reflects the influence of German Expressionism and Russian Constructivism, as well as Méndez’s experience in the Stridentist Movement—its jazzy, zig-zag composition and tilted perspective suggest a playful and happy activity, analogous to what will happen within the building after it becomes a place of learning for children. Furthermore, the constructivist qualities of the print correspond to the literal construction of the school and of a new society, made possible prt by the development of the rural education system. On the balance, in contrast to other, more oppositional prints by Méndez, Constructores is a engaging and positive image of social advances in Mexico during this time period. (Deborah Caplow)

Catalogue record number: 324