El embajador Lane Wilson “arregla” el conflicto
Date: c. 1945-47
Medium: Linocut
Dimensions (cm.): 30.1 x 21.3
Alternate titles: Unknown
Published edition:
Portfolio Estampas de la revolución mexicana: 500 copies, numbered 1-500 and 50 copies numbered I-L, printed commercially by Editorial Galatea and published by La Estampa Mexicana under the direction of Hannes Meyer. The prints were printed from the original linoleum blocks on bond paper , 36 kg., of various colors (white, pink, orange, blue, green). The album cover was printed on gray (ceniza) corsican cardstock, 182 kgs. Sheet dimensions 40.5 x 30.2.
Additional impressions of the individual prints from the portfolio were hand-pulled at the TGP. Number of impressions unknown.
A photomechanical reproduction, printed by offset, was included in the 1960 TGP portfolio 450 años de lucha: Homenaje al pueblo mexicano.
Contemporary publication: Contenido y trascendencia del pensamiento popular mexicano. Mensaje de la Universidad Obrera de México a la UNESCO (México, dic. 1947), p. 29
References: Exposición de Homenaje 460, Prignitz 661
Commentary: Created for Estampas de la revolución mexicana. the ingenious print El Embajador Lane Wilson “arregla” el conflicto (Ambassador Lane Wilson “Fixes” the Conflict) refers to General Victoriano Huerta’s 1913 coup against the elected government of Mexico, which was carried out with the support of Henry Lane Wilson, the American ambassador to Mexico. During the bloody Decena Trágica, Huerta’s men murdered President Madero, Vice-President Pino Suárez and the president’s brother, Gustavo Madero. Lane Wilson’s support of the coup was motivated by British and American petroleum interests, and his actions were undertaken without the approval of the United States government. When President Wilson learned of Lane Wilson’s role in the coup, he recalled the ambassador from his post.
Méndez depicts Lane Wilson manipulating key players in Mexican politics like chess pieces, with a look of feigned innocence on his face. He holds a chess piece in the form of Huerta in his right hand; Madero and Zapata, also chess pieces, lie tumbled on their sides on the board, pushed over by Lane Wilson’s other hand. Two sinister figures whisper in the ambassador’s ears, both with dollar signs on their glasses, personifications of Mexican and foreign capital. Méndez’s print also had a resonance with more recent events. While the fall of Madero was precipitated in part by his resistance to foreign petroleum investors, the nationalization of the oil industry by Cárdenas in 1938 was a point of national pride for all Mexicans. El Embajador Lane Wilson therefore alludes to the whole history of natural resources in Mexico from before the Revolution, and it ties together the Revolution of Madero and the Revolution of Cárdenas. (Deborah Caplow)
Cataloging note: The portfolio Estampas de la revolucion mexicana included an historical note by Alberto Morales Jiménez for each print. The note for this print reads:
Desde el edificio de la Embajada norteamericana, el tenebroso Henry Lane Wilson, representante diplomático de la Casa Blanca, tramó la traición huertista. Fue allí, segun los testimonios irrefutables de testigos presenciales, donde se firmó el Pacto de la Embajada, que hizo factible la usurpación del borracho Victoriano y los crueles asesinatos de Madero y Pino Suárez. Lane Wilson fué genuino representante de la política imperialista que ha caracterizado, casi sin excepción, a la Casa Blanca.
Catalogue record number: 187