Construyendo Escuelas (Building Schools) by Leopoldo Mendez
Construyendo Escuelas (Building Schools)
Leopoldo Mendez
Title
Construyendo Escuelas (Building Schools)
Artist
Leopoldo Mendez
1902 - 1969 (biography)Year
1931
Technique
woodcut
Image Size
10 1/8 x 3 11/16" â image
Signature
pencil, lower right
Edition Size
proof, edition not stated
Annotations
âLMâ carved into the block, lower right; dated in pencil "31"
Reference
Mendez/Azpeitia 27; Ittman, Figure 210; AIC 1942.668
Paper
antique-withe wove paper
State
published
Publisher
artist
Inventory ID
20602
Price
SOLD
Description
An early, rare woodcut by Mendez, who was a founder of the Taller de Grafica Popular (TGP). This print is illustrated on page 179 (figure 21) in 'Mexico and Modern Printmaking', edited by John Ittman for the Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2007. In his essay on Mendez in the same publication James Wechsler notes: "in 1920 Mendez attended the experimental Open Air Schools in Chimalistac and Coyoacan. Under the influence of the schools' director, modernist painter Alfredo Ramos Martinez (1871-1946), Mendez developed the flattened, angular realism that would characterize his block prints into the early 1930s, such as 'Building Schools." This impression is dated "31". Other sources list the print as having been done in 1932.