A saraband of skeletons
About the exhibition "Posada, genius of engraving" which is held in Epinal until 18 September.
A tribute is being paid at the Musée de l'Image in Epinal (88) to the man whom Diego Rivera considered to be the most important artist in Mexico, "the equal of Goya", as he said: the illustrator José Guadalupe Posada. What's more, it was a Frenchman, Jean Charlot, who rediscovered him in the 1920s.
Who does not know today his figures of dancing skeletons, laughing, enjoying existence in the manner of the living? Closely associated with Mexican culture, the famous "calaveras", images of death, are now recurrent motifs in international popular culture.
Their author, José Guadalupe Posada (1852-1913), was a man with a singular destiny, who abandoned a career that had already been planned in order to put his talent at the service of the popular press: illustrations of news items, stories, songs... - reminiscent of the production of French imagery, particularly that of Épinal, which enjoyed a golden age in the 19th century.
With his great technical mastery of lead engraving and zincography, Posada magnifies scenes of exacerbated expressiveness. The author of more than ten thousand prints, he nevertheless died forgotten. His press drawings, true works of art that were in turn frightening or burlesque, were destined to be thrown in the trash. Fortunately, most of them have been saved.
The first retrospective in France of Posada's work, the exhibition "Posada, genius of engraving" can be seen in Epinal until 18 September.