Artists of the Taller de Gráfica Popular (TGP; People’s Print Workshop) were concerned with creating clear, direct graphic images that could communicate visually with illiterate populations in Mexico. Education reform was a significant post-revolutionary goal, and in 1944 President Manuel Ávila Camacho instituted a massive national literacy campaign for adults. The program instructed all literate citizens to teach their peers to read and write, and legally obligated all those between the ages of six and forty who were unable to read to comply with instruction. Members of the TGP contributed directly to the campaign by creating instructional primers the government circulated, and by donating artworks to fundraising auctions.

Alfredo Zalce represented the literacy campaign in this linocut for the Estampas de la Revolución Mexicana (Prints of the Mexican Revolution) portfolio. A man teaches his friend how to read from a primer, perhaps one of the very publications illustrated by members of the TGP. As he does, he lifts the blindfold from his companion’s eyes, symbolically showing him the new world of understanding that literacy would bring.