- Title
- The Death of Emiliano Zapata. April 10, 1919 (La muerte de Emiliano Zapata. 10 de abril de 1919)
- Date Made
- 1947
- Medium
- Linocut
- Dimensions
- Sheet: 10 5/8 × 15 3/4 in. (26.99 × 40.01 cm); image: 8 7/16 × 11 7/8 in. (21.43 × 30.16 cm)
- Accession Number
- M.2003.92.118
- Collecting Area
- Latin American Art
- Curatorial Notes
Emiliano Zapata (1879–1919) was a leader of the peasant revolt in the Mexican state of Morelos. He was often photographed wearing his typical charro gear: a fitted black jacket and broad-brimmed hat. This traditional horseman ensemble signaled his rural connection. Zapata became a visual icon of the revolution and his portrait appeared often in post-revolutionary art, including prints made by members of the Taller de Gráfica Popular (People’s Print Workshop). Here, Isidoro Ocampo retains Zapata’s distinctive garb while capturing the moment he transformed from revolutionary leader to legendary martyr after his assassination. Photographs of Zapata’s corpse circulated after his death, serving as proof of both the unexpected event and the hero’s venerated status. Ocampo rejected well-known images of Zapata—both living and dead—in favor of an imagined scene that combines the depiction of an action in progress with the tradition of death portraiture, memorializing the leader and icon.
For more information see the catalogue entry by Rachel Kaplan in Pressing Politics: Revolutionary Graphics from Mexico and Germany, 2022, pp. 34–35.
- 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
