- Title
- In the Hands of the Gestapo (En manos de la Gestapo)
- Date Made
- circa 1942
- Medium
- Linocut
- Dimensions
- Sheet: 18 3/4 × 26 3/8 in. (47.63 × 66.99 cm); image: 13 3/4 × 18 1/4 in. (34.93 × 46.36 cm)
- Accession Number
- M.2003.92.16
- Collecting Area
- Latin American Art
- Curatorial Notes
In 1943 a group of European exiles in Mexico City published El libro negro del terror nazi en Europa (The Black Book of Nazi Terror in Europe), a narrative of Nazi atrocities with print illustrations by members of the Taller de Gráfica Popular (People’s Print Workshop; TGP). Leopoldo Méndez created this disturbing rendering of state-sponsored violence for the book where it was published alongside an essay on the Secret State Police, or Gestapo. What might otherwise seem to be a general scene of torture is given specificity by the swastika-emblazoned patches on each tormentor’s sleeve. Two of the aggressors are captured mid-blow, while the figure on the left holds his weapon at his side. His is the only face we can see clearly, and his complete lack of emotion is telling: he is detached and indifferent to the suffering he inflicts.
For more information see the catalogue entry by Rachel Kaplan in Pressing Politics: Revolutionary Graphics from Mexico and Germany, 2022, pp. 108–9.
- Provenance
Taller de Gráfica Popular, Mexico City, c. 1942; Dr. Jules Heller (1919–2007), Scottsdale, Arizona, 1947; LACMA, 2003.
- 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
