CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 11/21/2021

Viva Mexico!

Featured spreads are from Mexico: The Land of Charm, RM's exhilarating new clothbound compendium of modern Mexican ephemera produced from the early 1900s through the 1960s—a staff favorite Holiday Gift Book, 2021! “After four years of Donald Trump’s vicious anti-Mexican jingoism,” essayist and international design authority Steven Heller writes, “it is a welcome relief to refocus my attention on the Mexico known for its prolific and abundant modern art heritage on a par with early-twentieth century Europe and mid-Century United States; the Mexico that also inspired an impressive legacy of political and social (and socialist) design commentary and the progressive periodicals (revistas) that published them; the Mexico that produced a wealth of printed material that can stand beside any of the innovative graphic design and typography from the past. From the treasure trove of the Mexican avant-garde—exhaustively chronicled in the 2010 book and exhibition México Ilustrado: Libros, Revistas y Carteles 1920–1950—to a wellspring of quotidian magazines, newspapers and travel and tourist books, many designed with swagger and flair, Mexico is only now receiving its overdue share of notice in art and design histories. And with this book, much of the nation’s otherwise ephemeral graphic, photographic, and typographic ‘applied art’ is finally receiving the attention it deserves—because this book proves that Mexico is an important link in the history of Western graphic design style and form.”