
The Vengeance of the People
<p>With more than two dozen illustrations by 11 artists of the Taller de Gráfica Popular, <em>The Black Book of Nazi Terror in Europe</em> (1943) was the group’s most important antifascist collaboration with the European exile community in Mexico. Supported by the government of Manuel Ávila Camacho, this groundbreaking book extensively documented Nazi atrocities through testimonies, statistics, photographs, and illustrations, with contributions by well-known European, American, and Latin American writers and artists. Many of the Taller’s illustrations were also produced as individual prints. </p> <p><strong>Español:</strong>El libro negro del terror nazi en Europa (1943) constituyó la colaboración antifascista más importante del Taller de Gráfica Popular con la comunidad europea exiliada en México. En él se incluyeron más de dos docenas de ilustraciones realizadas por once de sus miembros. Con el apoyo del gobierno de Manuel Ávila Camacho, este emblemático libro documenta ampliamente las atrocidades nazis a través de testimonios, estadísticas, fotografías e ilustraciones, y mediante contribuciones de afamados artistas y escritores europeos, estadounidenses y latinoamericanos. Muchas de las ilustraciones del Taller fueron también publicadas como grabados sueltos. </p>
Catalogue
- Year
- 1942
- Dimensions
- Image: 25.3 × 20.2 cm (10 × 8 in.); Sheet: 35.5 × 30 cm (14 × 11 13/16 in.)
- Collection
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Artist
- Leopoldo Méndez
Artist

Printmaking
Leopoldo Méndez was a Mexican printmaker whose lithographs and woodcuts became foundational to twentieth-century Latin American social realism. Working from the 1920s onward, he deployed bold graphic forms and stark tonal contrasts to chronicle labor struggles, indigenous life, and anti-imperialist resistance. His prints circulated among working-class and activist networks across Mexico and beyond, establishing printmaking as a vehicle for direct political intervention rather than institutional mediation. The formal clarity of his compositions, combined with their urgent social content, shaped successive generations of socially engaged artists in the Americas.
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More by Leopoldo Méndez
Posada in His Workshop (Homage to Posada)
1953 · Linocut in black on cream wove paper
Firing Squad
1950 · Linocut in black on cream wove paper
Torches, from Río Escondido
1948 · Linocut in black on cream wove paper
Torches from the portfolio Rio Escondido (Hidden River)
1948 · Wood engraving
Little Schoolteacher, How Immense is Thy Will, from Río Escondido
1948 · Linocut in black on cream wove paper
I Thirst, from Río Escondido
1948 · Linocut in black on cream wove paper
Record
Verified by WattsOS- Artist
- Leopoldo Méndez
- Year
- 1942
- Dimensions
- Image: 25.3 × 20.2 cm (10 × 8 in.); Sheet: 35.5 × 30 cm (14 × 11 13/16 in.)
- Watts ID
- WW-1942-043699
Source
- Collection
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Source
- aic
- Reference
- View at source
- Status
- verified





