Leopoldo Mendez
Mexican
1903-1967
Becoming, at age fifteen, the youngest
student to have enrolled in the San Carlos Academy of Art, Leopoldo
Mendez went on to figure prominently amongst the twentieth century’s most
distinguished printmakers.
To Mendez—considered one of Mexico’s most
accomplished artists—style was the means rather than the end in his quest to
raise the awareness of the masses of the Mexican population of their potential,
through the richness of their heritage. A contemporary of Diego Rivera and
David Alfaro Siqueiros, Mendez became known
internationally for his politically motivated art which expressed strongly his
opposition to injustice, fascism and war.
A founding and actively participating
member of such groups as the Estridentistas, the Liga de Escritores y Artistas Revolutionarios (League
of Revolutionary Artists and Writers) and the Taller de Grafica
Popular (a cooperative printmaking workshop dedicated to serving the needs of
the Mexican people), Mendez received many awards for
his accomplishments. A Guggenheim Fellowship was followed by the International
Peace Prize in