La Calavera Catrina

La Calavera Catrina ("The Dapper [female] Skull") is an image and associated character originating as a zinc etching created by the Mexican printmaker and lithographer José Guadalupe Posada (1852–1913).

Whereas Posada's print intended to satirize upper class women of the Porfiriato, Rivera, through various iconographic attributes that referenced indigenous cultures, rehabilitated her into a Mexican national symbol.

Curator Ruben C. Cordova has identified four broadsides published by the Vanegas Arroyo family that feature Posada's Catrina image.

The first of these broadsides, was published for Day of the Dead in 1913 (it bears a date), and is titled "Remate de Calaveras Alegres y Sandungueras, Las que hoy son empolvadas Garbanceras pararán en deformes calaveras" ("The Ending of the Cheerful and Sandunga-dancing skulls", "those that today are powdered ordinary and vulgar will end as deformed skulls").

Though Posada had made his print as a criticism of the wealthy elite, the text of the 1913 broadside was a vicious attack on working class women who sold garbanzo beans (instead of foods native to Mexico).

[1] The second publication of Posada's image was in a broadside titled "Han Salido por Fin, Las Calaveras" ("They have finally left"), issued sometime after Antonio Vanegas Arroyo's death in 1917.

When the 1985 earthquake required the demolition of the hotel, the fresco was moved to the Museo Mural Diego Rivera, which is adjacent to the Alameda Park.

But instead of outfitting her with a matching bourgeois gown, he puts her in a simple Tehuana skirt, similar to those Kahlo wore, which were associated with indigenous women from Tehuantepec.

Additionally, for many years, influential Day of the Dead festivities in Mexico City were held at museums that centered on Rivera and Kahlo, where the Linares family made three-dimensional versions of Posada's prints out of papier mâché.

Díaz is lauded for modernizing and bringing financial stability to Mexico, but he also led his government in repression, corruption, and excess, and had an obsession with European materialism and culture.

Christine Delsol writes: "Concentration of fantastic wealth in the hands of the privileged few brewed discontent in the hearts of the suffering many, leading to the 1910 rebellion that toppled Diaz in 1911 and became the Mexican Revolution.

La Calavera Catrina, from 2018 (oil and gold leaf on panel) combines influences from traditional New Mexican religious statues and cubism with papel picado (cut paper) patterns.

[12] The male counterpart to the Catrina, wears the same skull makeup and black clothes, often a formal suit with a top hat or a mariachi costume.