Zapata

Date: 1928

Medium: Woodcut

Dimensions (cm.): Information to be added

Alternate titles: Unknown

Published edition: Unknown

Contemporary publication: 

References: Information to be added

Commentary: In Jalapa, as a member of the Stridentist Movement, Méndez provided woodblock illustrations for the second edition of a poetic biography of Zapata, Zapata: exaltacion, by Stridentist writer Germán List Arzubide, published by Ediciones Estridentistas.  

Based on List Arzubide’s interviews with people who had known Revolutionary General Emiliano Zapata, this was the first book published about the man who came to stand for the most radical wing of the Mexico Revolution, and Méndez’s woodcuts were among the first prints to depict scenes from the Mexican Revolution. Méndez’s portrayals of Zapata predate works by Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros and José Clemente Orozco (known as Los Tres Grandes—the Three Big Ones—in reference to their importance in the Mexican Mural Movement), who began to incorporate likenesses of Zapata in murals and prints at the end of the 1920s. 

Here he depicted Zapata on horseback in front of a group of his followers, who wave banners with the words “Tierra y Libertad” (Land and Freedom), a slogan that represents Zapata’s idealistic program of agrarian reform. In this and other early political prints Méndez portrays revolutionary action, and his images of Zapata played a significant part in the developing iconography of both Zapata and the Mexican Revolution. Méndez’s illustration was one of the first graphic images of Zapata, and corresponds with the increasing use of prints in Mexican art in the the 1920s. (Deborah Caplow)

Cataloging note: As published on the front page of the April 6, 1929 issue of El machete, this print was shown in Tina Modotti's famous photograph, Campesinos leyendo El Machete.

Catalogue record number: 305