Leopoldo Méndez
Mexican, 1902 - 1969El Maíz (Maize) from Mexican People portfolio, ca. 1945
Not on view
Lithograph on paper
Dimensions17 5/8 × 15 1/8 in. (44.8 × 38.4 cm)
Image: 13 7/8 × 11 5/16 in. (35.2 × 28.7 cm)
Gift of Mr. Jack B. Pierson, 1987.31.9
Méndez was born on June 30, 1902, the son of a shoemaker and a peasant woman. During the 1920s, he worked as an illustrator for magazines such as Horizonte and Norte de Veracruz. He created posters which depicted social problems facing Mexicans. After exhibiting his work for the first time in the United States in 1930, he held several exhibitions abroad, and in 1939, received a grant from the Guggenheim Foundation in New York City. In 1946, he received the First National Prize for Graphic Art Mexico, and in 1948, he was chosen as a delegate to attend the Worldwide Congress of Intellectuals for Peace in Poland.
