A gasping woman on the ground with her hands raised to her head, from a broadside entitled 'Gaceta Callejera'
Medium
Type-metal engraving
Dimensions
Sheet: 4 1/8 × 4 5/16 in. (10.5 × 11 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gift of Jean Charlot, 1930
Accession Number
30.82.69
Tags
Art Historical Context
In the turbulent world of late 19th-century Mexico José Guadalupe Posada captured the raw drama of everyday life through his bold prints. This 1893 type-metal engraving titled *A gasping woman on the ground with hands raised to her head comes from the broadside *Gaceta Callejera* ("Street Gazette"), a cheap, sensational news sheet sold by vendors to inform and thrill the public. Posada, a master of Mexican popular graphic art, used these broadsides to depict crimes, disasters, and social upheavals during the Porfiriato era under President Porfirio Díaz, blending satire with stark realism. The...
About the Artist
José Guadalupe Posada · 1852–1913
José Guadalupe Posada (1852-1913) was a Mexican printmaker and engraver who revolutionized popular art and created some of the most iconic images in Mexican culture. Working primarily with publisher Antonio Vanegas Arroyo, he produced over 20,000 images during his career—inexpensive broadsheets sold for a penny on colored paper that made his art accessible to even the poorest workers. He transform...