El clero y la prensa (The Clergy and the Press)

1939

Employing a tongue-in-cheek style, José Chávez Morado here depicts representatives of the Catholic Church as ghoulish, shade-like creatures, their corruption manifest in their grotesque appearance. The press has not fared much better: a laughable crew of animal specimens stands in for messengers of public opinion, their attempts to write anything substantial stymied by their ruffled feathers and sharp beaks. By placing the groups across from each other, Chávez Morado shows that both were largely powerless in 1930s Mexico, despite President Lázaro Cárdenas’s somewhat sympathetic approach toward the Church.

Medium: Lithograph
Dimensions: sheet: 13 7/8 × 17 3/4 in. (35.3 × 45.1 cm)
Credit Line: Gift of Monroe E. Price, B.A. 1960, LL.B. 1964, and Aimée Brown Price, M.A. 1963, Ph.D. 1972
Accession Number: 2020.16.8
Geography: Made in Mexico
Culture: Mexican
Period: 20th century
Classification: Prints
Disclaimer: Note: This electronic record was created from historic documentation that does not necessarily reflect the Yale University Art Gallery’s complete or current knowledge about the object. Review and updating of records is ongoing.

Provenance

Taller de Gráfica Poplular, Mexico City, until ca. 1995; Aimée Brown Price and Monroe E. Price, New York, ca. 1995 untl 2019; Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Conn.

Bibliography

"Selected Acquisitions," Yale University Art Gallery Bulletin (2020–21), 193, ill

Deborah Caplow, Leopoldo Méndez: Revolutionary Art and the Mexican Print, 1st (Austin, Tex.: University of Texas Press, 2007), 152, Fig. 5.30, fig. 5.30

Object copyright

In Copyright

Additional information

Object/Work type

lithographs

Edition

5/25

Marks

Nothing on verso

Inscriptions

recto, in plate, center: ChM

Signed

Signed: Ch. M.

Technical metadata and APIs

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El clero y la prensa (The Clergy and the Press) Artist: José Chávez Morado (Mexican, 1909–2002) Publisher: Taller de Gráfica Popular (Mexico City, founded 1937)