- Title
- Industrialization of the Country (La industrialización del país)
- Date Made
- 1947
- Medium
- Linocut
- Dimensions
- Sheet: 15 3/4 × 10 5/8 in. (40.01 × 26.99 cm); image: 11 15/16 × 8 9/16 in. (30.32 × 21.75 cm)
- Accession Number
- M.2003.92.140
- Collecting Area
- Latin American Art
- Curatorial Notes
This linocut by Arturo García Bustos is the final print in Estampas de la Revolución Mexicana (Prints of the Mexican Revolution), a collective portfolio by the Taller de Gráfica Popular (People’s Print Workshop) that presented seventy years of revolutionary and counterrevolutionary activity in Mexico. Here, García Bustos depicts a group of workers—with their arms raised and backs turned from the viewer—walking toward the silhouetted smokestacks of a factory. The caption in the portfolio’s accompanying booklet credits the country’s industrialization both to the leadership of President Miguel Alemán (1903–1983) and to the “anhelo del pueblo” (the people’s longing). Industrialization is celebrated as a revolutionary way for Mexico to achieve economic independence. However, the image also has ominous overtones, from the clusters of frenetic marks that suggest pollution entering the dark sky to the figure in the foreground who dangerously grips his knife by the blade instead of its handle.
For more information see the catalogue entry by Rachel Kaplan in Pressing Politics: Revolutionary Graphics from Mexico and Germany, 2022, pp. 86–87.
- Provenance
Taller de Gráfica Popular, Mexico City, 1947; 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
