Taller de Grafica Popular
The Taller de Gráfica Popular (Workshop of Folk Graphic Artists, TGP) was an association of international artists in Mexico .
It was founded in 1937 and at times had over one hundred members. Major members of the association were Ignacio Aguirre , Raúl Anguiano , Luis Arenal , Alberto Beltrán , Ángel Bracho , Celia Calderón de la Barca , Elizabeth Catlett , José Chávez Morado , Coney Cohen and Jean Charlot , Francisco Dosamantes , Arturo García Bustos , Alfred Hrdlicka , Carlos Jurado , Max Kahn , Adolfo Mexiac , Leopoldo Méndez and Hannes Meyer as well as Francisco Mora , Pablo O'Higgins , Isidoro Ocampo , Mariano Paredes , Antonio Pujol , Koloman Sokol , Albe Steiner , Mariana Yampolsky and Alfredo Zalce .
The members created political-graphic leaflets and posters for the common people. The leaflets were made as lithographs and peeled off by hand. They campaigned for trade unions and popular education and for the socialist president of Mexico , Lázaro Cárdenas del Río , denounced the persecution of teachers by the Catholic Church and the crimes of European fascism . Two members of the "Taller de Grafica Popular" took part in an assassination attempt on Leon Trotsky, who was in exile in Mexico . This strained relations with the Mexican Communist Party and some artists left the group. After the Second World War, the national sovereignty and the military interventions of the USA against Honduras , Guatemala and Cuba as well as peace were discussed on the posters and leaflets . The graphics were now made as linocuts and reproduced using a horizontal press. Graphics were created for the subtitling of films by the director Justino Fernández , slide shows and film sequences on the history of the labor movement . When the International Peace Prize was awarded to Leopoldo Méndez and the "Taller de Grafica Popular", there were disputes, as a result of which many artists resigned. In the period that followed, a few graphics for women's rights and peace were created, but the association increasingly lost its importance. When differences of opinion arose between communist, social democratic and liberal artists, the creative time of the "Taller de Grafica Popular" ended.
The Ibero-American Institute of Prussian Cultural Heritage in Berlin owns an extensive collection of posters and leaflets from this artists' association.
literature
- Helga Prignitz: TGP: a graphic artist collective in Mexico from 1937–1977 . Berlin 1981, ISBN 3-922005-12-8
- Helga Prignitz-Poda: Taller de Gráfica Popular: Workshop for graphic folk art: posters and leaflets on the labor movement and trade unions in Mexico 1937–1986 . Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-935656-10-6