Profesor Arnulfo Sosa Portillo

Date: 1939

Medium: Lithograph

Dimensions (cm.): 27.1 x 20.5

Alternate titles: Unknown

Published edition:

1. In portfolio En nombre de Cristo... han asesinado más de 200 maestros. Editorial Gráfica Popular, Mexico City, 1939

2. Unknown number of impressions outside the edition printed on loose sheets.

Contemporary publication: 

1. See published edition, above

2. Revista 1945, junio 1945

References: Exposición de Homenaje 362, Prignitz 396

Commentary: Profesor Arnulfo Sosa Portillo, like the other prints in the portfolio En nombre de Cristo, makes use of significant symbolism. The newspaper account on which Méndez based this image describes the event: “A party of armed men…set fire to the school and killed the rural school teacher Profesor Arnulfo Sosa Portillo, with machetes. His body was found abandoned in the Municipal Building. This teacher, on understanding the danger he was in, had taken refuge in the Municipal Building, but did not find the security he sought there, as the authorities were forced to flee and abandoned him to his fate….” The attackers are campesinos in large sombreros and country dress; they wield large machetes against the teacher, swirling around in a macabre dance. The teacher falls toward the viewer, dramatically foreshortened, like St. Matthew in Caravaggio’s Calling of St. Matthew. As in Profesor Juan Martínez Escobar, the artist has emphasized the hands, those of the teacher being especially large and expressive, while the attackers all have small, tense fists. (Deborah Caplow)

Catalogue record number: 246