Stalin
Date: 1944
Medium: Linocut
Dimensions (cm.): 25.0 x 10.2
Published edition: Unknown
Contemporary publication:
Tricolor no. 8, 4 noviembre 1944, cover
José Mancisidor, Stalin. El hombre de acero (Instituto de Intercambio Cultural Mexicano-Ruso, 1950), cover
References: Exposición de Homenaje 93
Commentary: As the art director of the magazine Tricolor, edited by Hernán Laborde, Méndez created cover illustrations for four issues in November and December of 1944 featuring portraits of the Allied leaders Stalin, Roosevelt, Churchill, and Mexican President Manuel Ávila Camacho. The portrait of Stalin was especially heroic and was used again for the cover of José Mancisidor's 1950 encomium.
Portraits of the four leaders, likely these by Méndez, decorated the meeting hall of the inaugural meeting of the Jewish communist organization, Idishe Folks-Ligue in Meksike (“Liga Popular Israelita de México;” “Jewish People's League in Mexico”) on January 21, 1945. The featured speaker was Soviet ambassador Konstantin Umansky, who was to perish in a plane crash just four days later. See Wikipedia article on the Folks-Ligue. (Peter Schneider)
Catalogue record number: 176