- Title
- Understanding Mexico Through the U.O. (Workers’ University)! (¡Entendiendo a México por la U.O., Universidad Obrera!)
- Date Made
- circa 1937
- Medium
- Lithograph
- Dimensions
- Image (per Paper Conservation 01/04/22): 8 1/2 × 12 1/4 in. (21.59 × 31.12 cm)
Sheet (per Paper Conservation 01/04/22): 12 3/4 × 16 1/4 in. (32.39 × 41.28 cm)
Mat: 14 × 19 in. (35.56 × 48.26 cm)
- Accession Number
- M.2001.200.10
- Collecting Area
- Latin American Art
- Curatorial Notes
In 1936 the Universidad Obrera de México (U.O.; Workers’ University of Mexico) was founded by labor leader Vicente Lombardo Toledano (1894–1968). The university aimed to improve future conditions for the working class by providing laborers with an education that would enable them to form a collective class consciousness and proletariat culture. The school was an important ally for the Taller de Gráfica Popular (People’s Print Workshop) in the initial years of its founding and member artist Leopoldo Méndez served on the university’s faculty.
Méndez likely created this lithograph as a poster for the school. Three men sit around a map of Mexico. The central figure points, seemingly leading the discussion. The banner behind the men stands out in bright, colorful contrast, its use of red and the five-pointed star alluding to the school’s Communist ties and ideologies. The star and pointing hand are also elements of the school’s logo, which Méndez may be referencing.
For more information see the catalogue entry by Rachel Kaplan in Pressing Politics: Revolutionary Graphics from Mexico and Germany, 2022, pp. 64–65.
- Selected Bibliography
- Kaplan, Rachel, and Erin Sullivan Maynes. Pressing Politics: Revolutionary Graphics from Mexico and Germany. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2022.
- Selected Exhibition History
- Pressing Politics: Revolutionary Graphics from Mexico and Germany. October 29, 2022 - July 22, 2023
- Pressing Politics: Revolutionary Graphics from Mexico and Germany. October 29, 2022 - July 22, 2023
