Taxi Drivers against the Gold Shirts

Taxi Drivers against the Gold Shirts

Alfredo ZalceWW-1940-067410
1940·Lithograph in black on cream wove paper·Image: 25.5 × 32 cm (10 1/16 × 12 5/8 in.); Sheet: 44.1 × 50 cm (17 3/8 × 19 11/16 in.)

<p>Zalce’s surrealistic image dramatizes the struggle between the political left and right in Mexico as well as, more symbolically, the clash between modernity and the past. Based on a well-known press photograph, it depicts an altercation in Mexico City’s main square in November 1935 in which the cab drivers’ union disrupted a mounted demonstration by the reactionary paramilitary group Acción Revolucionaria Mexicanista (the so-called Gold Shirts).</p> <p><strong>Español:</strong><br>La surreal imagen de Zalce es una dramatización de las luchas entre la izquierda y la derecha mexicanas así como, de manera más simbólica, del enfrentamiento entre la modernidad y el pasado. Basada en una conocida fotografía publicada en la prensa, en ella se muestra un altercado en el Zócalo de la Ciudad de México, ocurrido en noviembre de 1935, en el que el sindicato de taxistas interrumpió una manifestación a caballo del grupo paramilitar reaccionario Acción Revolucionaria Mexicanista (los llamados Camisas Doradas).</p>

Catalogue

Year
1940
Dimensions
Image: 25.5 × 32 cm (10 1/16 × 12 5/8 in.); Sheet: 44.1 × 50 cm (17 3/8 × 19 11/16 in.)

Artist

Alfredo Zalce
Alfredo Zalce

Printmaking

Alfredo Zalce was a Mexican painter and printmaker active from the 1930s onward, working in a figurative style grounded in social realism and Mexican political art. His practice encompassed mural painting, easel works, and woodcuts that engaged with themes of labor, indigenous culture, and national identity. Zalce remained committed to accessible, publicly oriented forms throughout a long career spanning the postwar period and beyond.

Pátzcuaro, Michoacán, Mexico

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Record

Verified by WattsOS
Year
1940
Dimensions
Image: 25.5 × 32 cm (10 1/16 × 12 5/8 in.); Sheet: 44.1 × 50 cm (17 3/8 × 19 11/16 in.)
Watts ID
WW-1940-067410

Source

Source
aic
Status
verified

Artist

Alfredo Zalce

Alfredo Zalce

Printmaking

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