- Title
- In Times of Don Porfirio (En tiempos de Don Porfirio)
- Date Made
- 1945
- Medium
- Lithograph
- Dimensions
- Sheet: 25 1/4 × 20 3/4 in. (64.14 × 52.71 cm); image: 22 1/2 × 16 3/4 in. (57.15 × 42.55 cm)
- Accession Number
- M.2003.92.44
- Collecting Area
- Latin American Art
- Curatorial Notes
General Porfirio Díaz (1830–1915) was formally elected president of Mexico in 1877. After appointing his successor, Díaz ran again in 1884 and remained in office until he was forced to resign in 1911. During Díaz’s authoritarian regime, known as the Porfiriato, the country experienced growth and prosperity, but this progress was achieved through the exploitation of Indigenous and working-class Mexicans. In this satirical image, Alfredo Zalce highlights this schism through references to pulque, a fermented alcoholic drink made from the maguey plant. A sacred beverage consumed by the Indigenous elite before the conquest, pulque was largely associated with the Indigenous population in colonial and post-revolutionary times. During the Porfiriato, wealthy hacienda owners profited from the lucrative pulque industry while campaigns against inebriation targeted lower-class drinkers. In the decades following the revolution, pulque and the maguey from which it was extracted became national symbols, despite the fact that the drink’s consumption and noxious effects were topics of ongoing debate.
For more information see the catalogue entry by Rachel Kaplan in Pressing Politics: Revolutionary Graphics from Mexico and Germany, 2022, pp. 42–43.
- Provenance
Taller de Gráfica Popular, Mexico City, 1945; 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
