This type of artwork has had a long and fascinating history, as advertisements, enticements, and emblems of Mexican cultural heritage and pride. Romantic and idealistic was the way Mexicans from the 1930's to 1960's looked back at their ancient and glorious indigenous history. Artists such as Jose Bribiesca, Demetrio and Jesus Helguera provided the popular culture with heroic scenes of a proud and triumphant race. For the first time in their history, Mexicans embraced their indigenous roots and celebrated the ancient cultures with the assistance of social and artistic movements set up by the new, post-revolutionary government.

The exhibit explores this tradition with original oil paintings by Bribiesca, Demetrio, Serrano, Jesus Heguera, Alfredo Gonzalez and Vicente J. Morales. The calendar images you will see present not only pictorical references to Mexico's historic past, but bring forth conflicting values and attitudes embodied within this imagery....

Eduardo Cataño
"Siempre Mas que Ayer"
58 x 46 cm
22.8 x 18 inches

The History of Mexican Calendar Art, by Tere Romo.

"Perhaps the most significant social movement which contributed to the 20th century expressions in chromo calendar art was the Mexican Revolution of 1910. A peasant agrarian rebellion, it resulted not only in the development of a new revolutionary art consciousness. This consciousness was grounded in a cultural nationalist agenda emphasizing the celebration of indigenous culture and the popular arts.

Many new cultural and political icons emerged out of this historic period, which would come to dominate the Mexican modern art aesthetic, particularly mural art of the 1920's and 1930's. Just as important, the Revolution as a civil war displaced many Mexicans, many of whom eventually migrated to the United States. This migration, between 1910 and 1925 resulted in one of this century's largest wave of Mexican immigration to the U.S.
By the 1930's, a calendar industry lead by Casa Editorial Litolesa and Galas de Mexico emerged. Their imagery was in drawn in part, from the nationalist aesthetic of the 1920's and the evolution of a stereotypical tourist picture, evoking a "Folkloric Mexico", which had both economic and political agendas. The folkloric images of floating gardens, indigenous warriors and maidens, idealized rural environments depicted by these calendars became the principal vehicle of nationalist representations.

In the 1940's, World War II and increased economic and political influences from the United States changed Mexico. Calendar art evolved in concert with these changes and documented Mexico's support for the allied cause and an increased patriotism. By the end of the decade an evolving cultural border witnesed not only continued appearance of visual identifiers of Mexican culture in Mexican American communities through the portable calendar.

In the 1950's, increased corporate advertising campaigns, the use of photographic influences, and the growing influences of motion pictures and television began to change the nature of the calendar. By the 1970's, though the profession of almanac painters ended, its images survived. For the majority of the people of Mexico these calendars became an economical way to have "art" in their homes, a tradition that continues today."

Demetrio
"Popular Scene from Southern Mexico"
90 x 80 cm
35 x 31 inches

Exhibit Information

Most of the people that have some knowledge about Mexican Calendar Paintings know little about the history behind them. That is why we decided to include a presentation that talks about the history of Mexico, after the Revolution, and all of the ideas that Jose Vasconcelos, the first Secretary of Public Education, came up with to form a "National Identity" that was much needed for a country trying to reunite after a long internal struggle.

In the presentation we talk about what really happened in Mexico in the 1920's and 1930's, that gave life and a reason to the artist of the time to focus in the different aspects of Mexican life...

Who where all the artists involved ?

What were the big muralists up to ?

Who made the Mexican calendar industry a tradition that continues up to this day ?