- Title
- The Revenge of the People (La venganza de los pueblos)
- Date Made
- 1942
- Medium
- Woodcut
- Dimensions
- Sheet: 16 3/8 × 11 in. (41.59 × 27.94 cm); image: 9 7/8 × 8 in. (25.08 × 20.32 cm)
- Accession Number
- M.2003.92.7
- Collecting Area
- Latin American Art
- Curatorial Notes
This arresting image by Leopoldo Méndez was featured on the cover of the October 1942 issue of the Mexico City-based journal Freies Deutschland/Alemania Libre. The ax-wielding protagonist—personifying the people’s resistance—takes aim at a cowering Adolf Hitler (1889–1945), whose beastly arms strangle two innocent babies. Hitler’s allies, Italian Prime Minister Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) and Japanese General Tōjō Hideki (1884–1948), hide behind him as they are all chased by armies of soldiers and farmers carrying pitchforks and scythes. Consequent editions of the work were printed with the title Homage to the Heroic Army of Yugoslavian Guerrillas (Homenaje al heroico ejército de guerrilleros yugoeslavos) (see M.2003.92.6), and the caps worn by the rushing soldiers on the left recall those worn by Yugoslavian troops. However, the work’s allegorical meaning expands its scope beyond one specific location: the hero emerges from the masses—los pueblos—to reclaim freedom for all from fascism and injustice.
For more information see the catalogue entry by Rachel Kaplan in Pressing Politics: Revolutionary Graphics from Mexico and Germany, 2022, pp. 110–11.
- Provenance
Taller de Gráfica Popular, Mexico City, 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
