Cinco de Mayo!

Images of Death in Mexican Prints

Published by Editorial RM.
Foreword by Gregory Dechant. Text by Mercurio López Casillas.

Over the past two centuries, Mexican culture has kept up a unique dialogue with the fact of death, rather than defying it as most contemporary cultures are wont to do. Today, Mexico even boasts a Museum of Death (in Aguascalientes), filled with pre-Columbian sculpture and pottery, reproductions of ancient Indian codices depicting human sacrifices, colonial-era artworks, skeletons, artisan’s toys and works by the countless Modern artists who have treated the theme. It is, of course, in Mexico’s arts that the blend of respect and irreverence for death and the afterlife is made most clear. Here, Mercurio López Casillas, expert on nineteenth-century Mexican graphic art and the author of studies of José Guadalupe Posada and Manuel Manilla, surveys the subject from pre-Hispanic times to the comic pages of contemporary Mexican newspapers. López Casillas examines the long tradition of representing death and skeleton figures that leads up to Posada, and traces the influence of this great popular engraver in the work of many other twentieth-century artists, including those of the Taller de Gráfica Popular workshop, like Leopoldo Méndez. Readers of this richly illustrated book will also be fascinated by early colonial examples of calaveras, or skeleton caricatures. Images of Death is a colorful and lively deterrent against our habitual inclination to take the Grim Reaper too seriously. For enthusiasts of Mexican folk art, underground comics, tattoo art, the occult and more.

PUBLISHER
Editorial RM

BOOK FORMAT
Clothbound, 9 x 13.5 in. / 256 pgs / 98 color / 247 bw.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date 10/1/2008
Out of print

DISTRIBUTION
D.A.P. Exclusive
Catalog: SPRING 2008 p. 25   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9789685208895 TRADE
List Price: $65.00 CAD $87.00

AVAILABILITY
Not available

Mexico Illustrated 1920–1950

Published by RM/Conaculta.
Text by Salvador Albiñana, Juan M. Bonet, Deborah Dorotinsky, Marina Garone.

This volume is an expanded edition of the most important study ever published on modern illustrated books in Mexico. Mexico Illustrated 1920–1950 explores the illustration and poster work of great Mexican artists from the first half of the twentieth century, offering a selection of the finest illustrations from books, magazines and posters published in this era. Reflecting the range of aesthetic, pedagogical, political and propagandistic trends that held sway in Mexico at the time, it contains works relating to the Mexican Revolution, illustrations made for socialist writings and art drawn from novels and children's books, along with a great many contributions to magazines that oscillated between the avant-garde and the construction of a new vision of Mexico. Among the artists included here are some of Mexico's greatest artistic talents—Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, Rufino Tamayo, David Alfaro Siqueiros—along with lesser-known artists such as Ramón Alva de la Canal, Jean Charlot, Miguel Covarrubias, Dr. Atl, Gabriel Fernández Ledesma and Leopoldo Méndez. With more than 300 illustrations, Mexico Illustrated includes essays by Juan Manuel Bonet, Mercurio López Casillas, Dafne Cruz and Marina Garone, who elucidate the relations between Mexico and the European avant-garde movements, the socialist aesthetic, children's literature, graphic design and the cartography of postrevolutionary Mexico.

PUBLISHER
RM/Conaculta

BOOK FORMAT
Clth, 9.5 x 12.75 in. / 336 pgs / 405 color.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date 8/25/2015
Out of print

DISTRIBUTION
D.A.P. Exclusive
Catalog: SPRING 2015 p. 159   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9788415118961 TRADE
List Price: $75.00 CAD $99.00

AVAILABILITY
Not available

Frida Kahlo: Her Photos

Published by RM.
Edited by Pablo Ortiz Monasterio. Text by James Oles, Horacio Fernandez, Masayo Nonaka, Laura González, Mauricio Ortíz, Gerardo Estrada, Rainer Huhle, Gaby Franger.

The fullness with which Kahlo lived her life is seen best here, and her love for rich experience is reflected back at the reader, full of personality and vitality

PUBLISHER
RM

BOOK FORMAT
Hardcover, 6.75 x 9.5 in. / 524 pgs / 460 duotone.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date 8/31/2010
Active

DISTRIBUTION
D.A.P. Exclusive
Catalog: SPRING 2010 p. 89   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9788492480753 TRADE
List Price: $50.00 CAD $72.95

AVAILABILITY
In stock

Posada: A Century of Skeletons

Published by RM/BBVA.
Text by Juan Villoro, Mercurio López, Helia Bonilla, Montserrat Gali, Rafael Barajas.

Celebrating the 100th anniversary of the great Mexican satirist

PUBLISHER
RM/BBVA

BOOK FORMAT
Clth, 9 x 12 in. / 376 pgs / 968 color.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date 3/31/2014
Out of print

DISTRIBUTION
D.A.P. Exclusive
Catalog: SPRING 2014 p. 54   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9788415118664 TRADE
List Price: $65.00 CAD $87.00

AVAILABILITY
Not available

Posada & Manilla: Illustrations for Mexican Fairy Tales

Published by RM.
Text by Mercurio Lopez Casillas.

The second half of the nineteenth century was, famously, a golden age for children's literature-in Mexico as well as in North America and Europe. José Guadalupe Posada (1851-1913) and Manuel Manilla (1839-1895) are the two leading icons of children's illustration in Mexico, and together they developed a huge body of engravings and illustrations for cheap, ephemeral, "penny press" collections of Mexican fairy tales. In the early part of the last century, these fragile publications-once so ubiquitous and loved-received scant attention, until they were brought to a wider audience in the 1930s by the French artist Jean Charlot (who encountered them while visiting Diego Rivera). Published on the 100th anniversary of Posada's death, Illustrations for Mexican Fairy Tales gathers these vibrantly colorful works by both artists for the first time, many of which were done for the famous Mexican penny press publisher Antonio Vanegas Arroyo. Affordably priced, and with a wealth of color reproductions throughout, this extremely giftworthy collection includes a facsimile reprint of one of Posada's most beautiful and acclaimed booklets as well as an essay by the respected curator, collector and writer Mercurio Lopez Casillas.

PUBLISHER
RM

BOOK FORMAT
Paperback, 7.5 x 9.25 in. / 112 pgs / illustrated throughout.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date 3/31/2013
Active

DISTRIBUTION
D.A.P. Exclusive
Catalog: SPRING 2013 p. 57   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9788415118510 TRADE
List Price: $24.95 CAD $33.95

AVAILABILITY
In stock

Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, Jose Clemente Orozco

Published by The Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Text by James Oles.

Ten important works by three muralists at the forefront of Mexico’s social revolution

PUBLISHER
The Museum of Modern Art, New York

BOOK FORMAT
Paperback, 6 x 8 in. / 48 pgs / 40 color.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date 11/30/2011
Active

DISTRIBUTION
D.A.P. Exclusive
Catalog: FALL 2011 p. 16   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9780870708206 TRADE
List Price: $9.95 CAD $14.95

AVAILABILITY
In stock

Posada: Monograph

Published by RM.
Introduction by Frances Toor. Text by Diego Rivera.

Originally published in 1930, Posada: Monografía is a facsimile edition of the first monograph of the great Mexican illustrator and engraver José Guadalupe Posada (1852–1913). Reprinted to coincide with the 100th anniversary of his death, reproduces more than 400 of the most iconic prints from Posada’s vast output, collected by Pablo O’Higgins from those that could be located and identified at the time. Posada and Manuel Manilla--a talented engraver who greatly influenced Posada--were the two artists of their day who best interpreted the lives and social attitudes of Mexican people. Posada, in particular, is in the great tradition of illustrators who double as political and social commentators (a tradition that also includes Aubrey Beardsley and Honoré Daumier). The images of the high-spirited, at times macabre broadsheets reproduced in Posada: Monografía include the famous calaveras, or skeleton creatures, along with illustrations for songs, corridos (traditional ballads) and religious prayers. The skeletons in the barrios were a metaphor for a corrupt society; Posada supplemented his black humor with lampoons of venal politicians, and, not surprisingly, was jailed on several occasions for his transgressions. With their striking visual qualities, his ingenious images did much to enrich the tradition of the popular Mexican print. Posada: Monografía also includes an introduction by Frances Toor, the legendary editor of Mexican Folkways magazine, and an essay by Diego Rivera.

PUBLISHER
RM

BOOK FORMAT
Paperback, 9.25 x 13.5 in. / 214 pgs / 406 bw.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date 4/30/2013
Active

DISTRIBUTION
D.A.P. Exclusive
Catalog: SPRING 2013 p. 57   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9788415118473 TRADE
List Price: $29.95 CAD $39.95

AVAILABILITY
In stock

Frida & Diego: Passion, Politics and Painting

Published by Art Gallery of Ontario/High Museum of Art Atlanta.
Edited by Dot Tuer, Elliott King.

Frida Kahlo (1907–1954) and Diego Rivera’s (1886–1957) legendary passion for each other and for Mexico’s revolutionary culture during the 1920s and 1930s have made them among the twentieth century’s most famous artists. During their life together as a married couple, Rivera achieved prominence as a muralist artist, while Kahlo’s intimate paintings were embraced by the Surrealist movement and the Mexican art world--but neither were especially well known in the broader context of art and modernism. After their deaths in the 1950s, important retrospectives of Kahlo’s work enshrined her as one of the most significant women artists of the twentieth century, somewhat eclipsing Rivera’s international fame as Mexico’s greatest muralist painter. Frida & Diego: Passion, Politics and Painting offers a new perspective on their artistic significance for the twenty-first century, one that shows how their paintings reflect both the dramatic story of their lives together and their artistic commitment to the transformative political and cultural values of post-revolutionary Mexico. Frida & Diego features newly photographed color reproductions of 75 paintings and works on paper by both Kahlo and Rivera, rarely reproduced archival photographs and new biographical information on the couple assembled by scholar Dot Tuer. It is published on the occasion of an exhibition assembled from three distinguished Mexican private collections on Mexican art, and presented at the Art Gallery of Ontario and the High Museum of Art Atlanta.

PUBLISHER
Art Gallery of Ontario/High Museum of Art Atlanta

BOOK FORMAT
Clth, 8.25 x 10.25 in. / 96 pgs / 80 color.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date 1/31/2013
Out of print

DISTRIBUTION
D.A.P. Exclusive
Catalog: SPRING 2013 p. 58   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9781894243711 TRADE
List Price: $35.00 CAD $40.00

AVAILABILITY
Not available

Tina Modotti

Published by Silvana Editoriale.
Edited by Dario Cimorelli, Riccardo Costantini. Text by Pino Cacucci, Marianna Figarella, Gianni Pignat.

Photographer, actress, political activist, writer and muse to artists such as Edward Weston and Diego Rivera, Tina Modotti (1896–1942) produced an astonishing body of work during her relatively brief photographic career. She was active for only nine years, from 1923 to 1932, at which point she turned her focus exclusively to political action. A vital participant in the cultural and political ferment of the Mexican Renaissance, Modotti was expelled from Mexico for her Communist affiliations, moved to Moscow, worked in Spain during the Spanish Civil War and eventually returned to Mexico under a pseudonym. Tina Modotti includes 100 of the artist's black-and-white photographs (presented here in exquisite four-color reproductions), and paints a vivid, multifaceted portrait of this extraordinary woman.

PUBLISHER
Silvana Editoriale

BOOK FORMAT
Paperback, 9 x 11 in. / 160 pgs / 100 color.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date 6/23/2015
Active

DISTRIBUTION
D.A.P. Exclusive
Catalog: SPRING 2015 p. 112   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9788836628759 TRADE
List Price: $38.00 CAD $50.00

AVAILABILITY
Out of stock

Phyllis La Farge & Magdalena Caris: Painted Walls of Mexico

Published by Turner/A&R Press.
Foreword by Homero Ardis.

When author Phyllis La Farge and photographer Magdalena Caris recently took a journey from the city of Xalapa in the state of Veracruz to the town of Coatepec, they noted that on the facades of countless public and private buildings, improvised murals had been painted. The wit and exuberance of these wall paintings, whether commercial or simply decorative, suggested an urban visual lingo that could be traced to the ancestral murals of pre-Columbian Mexico, and La Farge and Caris decided that they deserved closer study. Somewhere between a scholarly investigation and a travel book, Painted Walls of Mexico documents these often anonymous interventions. As Homero Aridjis writes in the preface, "Painted Walls is not only an invaluable testimony to this undervalued art which is disappearing from our streets, but honors the unknown artists who, with humor and imagination but without the slightest recognition, convert the streets of their town into an open gallery."

PUBLISHER
Turner/A&R Press

BOOK FORMAT
Paperback, 8.5 x 9.5 in. / 224 pgs / 175 color / 1 bw.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date 5/1/2008
Active

DISTRIBUTION
D.A.P. Exclusive
Catalog: SPRING 2008 p. 195   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9789689056232 TRADE
List Price: $49.00 CAD $65.00

AVAILABILITY
In stock