| Born
in Mexico City, the youngest of eight children, he was
the youngest student to attend the San Carlos Academy
of Fine Arts. Mendez joined the Stridentist movement
in the early 1920s, soon after which he designed his
first woodcut. He designed book jackets and posters
commenting on social problems, and was a member of the
Communist Party of Mexico. In the interwar years Mendez
received a Professorship and visited the United States.
He worked on cultural and proletarian projects, including
printmaking workshops, and contributed images for radical
newspapers and books. From the time of the Spanish Civil
War and during the Second World War, Mendez contributed
anti-Franco and anti-Fascist works to various media,
including posters. He won a Guggenheim Fellowship to
the USA in 1939. Before the war he was falsely imprisoned
as the result of a failed assassination. Post-war he
designed murals and travelled several times to the Soviet
Union, winning awards and hosting a retrospective exhibition
on his 60th birthday. Mendez was associated with Taller
de Gráfica Popular (TGP), a social commentary
art movement. His paintings are held in several galleries,
and there are online exhibitions of his work. Whenever
Mendez produced a limited edition portfolio of his work,
he insisted 'that there be a mass-produced version of
the same work at a price within the reach of the average
citizen'. Alternatively, he ensured that the print was
visible to the masses possibly as a poster pasted on
fences, or handed out to citizens in Mexico City.
Information collated from: Heller, J., 'A
Virtual Portfolio of Works in Homage to Leopoldo Mendez',
http://herbergercollege.asu.edu/museum/mendez/chronology.htm,
accessed October 3 2003; Graphic Witness, 'Graphic
Witness: visual art and social commentary', http://www.graphicwitness.org/group/mendez.htm,
accessed October 3 2003; Artcyclopedia, 'Leopoldo
Mendez Online', http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/mendez_leopoldo.html,
accessed October 3 2003; Keith Sheridan Fine Prints,
'Keith Sheridan Fine Prints - Leopoldo Mendez', http://www.keithsheridan.com/mendez.html,
accessed October 3 2003
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