El Taller de Gráfica Popular: Vida y Arte
June 13 – September 13, 2015

From the international fight against fascism to protecting the proletariat, El Taller de Gráfica Popular (the Workshop for Popular Graphics, or the TGP for short) worked diligently to keep pertinent issues before the populace of Mexico and the world. Covering the period from the TGP’s predecessor, the LEAR (League of Revolutionary Writers and Artists), through the most active years of the workshop, this exhibition of approximately 250 works was the largest and most comprehensive anywhere since the 1950s. It included large-scale posters (“cartels”), small flyers (“volantes”), books and pamphlets, powerful fine-art portfolios and calavera newspapers that exemplified the TGP’s lasting contributions to the Mexican printmaking tradition. The TGP used art to inspire and inform in a country where literacy and communication technology were not widespread.

Remarkably prolific, the TGP produced works in a wide variety of media, specializing in linoleum prints and woodcuts. From Raúl Anguiano to Alfredo Zalce, workshop membership included many notable 20th-century Mexican printmakers. The workshop also instructed students from other countries in the techniques of printing and printmaking. As television and radio proliferated in Mexican homes and the political environment became more stable, the workshop’s productivity slowed. The TGP will always be remembered, however, as a distinct part of Mexican history, when art put social and political issues before the people and brought them to life. The museum published a hardcover book(opens in new tab) containing extensive scholarship and supplemental images that is the most comprehensive publication to date on the workshop.