Fascism (1)
Date: c. 1934-36
Medium: Woodcut
Dimensions (cm.): 14.1 x 18.9
Black and white
Black and red ink with text in flag: ayuda/A LOS REVOLUCIONARIOS/PERSEGUIDOS
Alternate titles: Fascismo 1; Fascismo I; Fascismo criollo; Fachismo criollo; El fascismo-Los Dorados; Manifestación en la Plaza Santo Domingo; Manifestación
Published edition:
Number of individual impressions unknown.
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 19, lower right corner of sheet. Sheet dimensions 19.2 x 24.4 cm.
Contemporary publication: Unknown
References: Exposición de Homenaje 403 (illus.); Méndez INBA 73; included in Prignitz 402-426
Commentary: Two woodcuts of the mid-1930s, Fascismo I and II, expand on the anti-fascist subjects portrayed in Hoja popular No. 1 and Cómo pretenden. In Fascismo I (Fascism I) (also called Manifestación en la Plaza Santo Domingo) Méndez again depicted the Camisas Doradas as murderers, and now even more sinister than in Hoja Popular I and Cómo pretenden, with covered eyes, down-turned mouths and enlarged hands. Their street clothes, fedoras, and revolvers identify them as members of the fascist paramilitary force the La Acción Revolucionaria Mexicanista (ARM).The attacker shoots his revolver at short-range into the face of a worker, and here again Méndez imitated Posada’s portrayal of gun smoke as clouds. In the background, Méndez depicted a scene similar to one of Posada’s images of execution, such as his Fusilamiento del capitán Clodomiro Cota (Execution by Firing Squad of Captain Clodomiro Cota). In the background, a row of identical men with rifles fire at workers in overalls whose hands are in the air. As the rise of fascism and the threat of war abroad were reflected in political upheaval in Mexico, Méndez’s representations of political events became correspondingly more intense in their depictions of violence. (Deborah Caplow)
Catalogue record number: 33