Á las Señoras Católicas

[Lazos León, Florinda]. Á las Señoras Católicas. San Cristóbal [de las Casas], Mexico: np, 1926. Broadside. 46.5 x 33 cm. Thin colored paper, creased where folded, a few v minor defects at edges, otherwise very good condition.

Revolutionary soldadera, suffragist, journalist, and labor organizer, Florinda Lazos León (1898-1973) advanced feminist and labor causes throughout Mexico, but particularly in her home state of Chiapas. During the Revolution she was a nurse in the Carrancista Liberating Army of the South and participated in organizing both the first Congress of Women Workers and Peasants of Chiapas (1919) and the first National Congress of Women Workers and Peasants (1931).

Scholarship on Mexican suffrage often omits the fact that Chiapas was the first Mexican state to grant women full rights of citizenship (“just” the fourth to give them the right to vote). In 1926, Lazos León became the first woman elected to the Chiapas legislature, more than a quarter century before women won the right to vote nationally. Though a few women had been elected in the Yucatan in 1924, they were not allowed to serve, making Lazos León the first woman ever to serve in a state-level elected office in Mexico.

This broadside was published after Lazos León announced her candidacy in a July issue of the worker’s party newspaper that she edited, La Gleba, and shortly before her November election. It is addressed to the women of her hometown, San Cristóbal de las Casas. The text is a finessed position on the Cristeros Rebellion–a violent conflict between the Mexican state and the Catholic Church in the 1920s. The seeds of the rebellion began with the 1917 Mexican Constitution. It restricted the political and economic power of the Church through several measures: requiring primary schools to be secular, nationalizing their property, and banning public ceremonies; the Church’s power was further reduced by additional statues and enforcement beginning in 1924 during the Calles presidency. Following increased anticlerical persecution, the Catholic hierarchy refused to conduct public mass and closed their churches in 1926. This led to an unusual role for women, who became the leading lay ministers of their communities.

In the present document, Lazos Leon implores women not to be drawn into the conflict, or as she wrote, used as “cannon fodder” by powerful government and religious interests. Instead, she asks that they stay true to the roots of their Christianity and protect poor and working people (including the rights of indigenous peoples).

Truly a rare surviving primary document authored by Lazos León who has no author record in WorldCat.

SOLD

Acción Y Fe

La Unión Nacional de Sociedades Femeniles Cristianas. Acción Y Fe. Mexico, D.F.: Casa Unida, 1927. 22.5 cm, 79 pp/; color stapled wrappers with losses at spine and rear.

Collection of stories, plays, poems, and music for use by Protestant women in evangelical educational contexts: seemingly both in the home and in missionary work. A number of “dramas” present conversations between criollo/mestizo women and indigenous women and girls (Voces Feminines, Diaologos Misioneros). Another dialogue entitled “Cristo y las mujeres del mundo” describes the women of Japan, Africa, Turkey, India, etc.

Fascinating artifact of women’s evangelicalism in Mexico during the national indigenismo movement.

Not found in OCLC.

SOLD

Frente Popular en todo el mundo [...]

Dimitrof, G. [Dimitrov, Georgi]. Frente Popular en todo el mundo: La unidad obrera campesina en la lucha contra el fascismo. Mexico: Ediciones Frente Cultural, nd. [1935]. 19 cm, 111 pp.; color pictorial wrappers with losses, esp. to blank rear edges. A few chips in toned textblock. One signature, pp. 81-96, bound upside down.

The only Mexican edition of Georgi Dimitrov’s Stalinist speeches promoting the Popular Front at the Comintern Congress, 1935. Dimitrov was a Bulgarian communist and General Secretary of the Comintern from 1935-1943. With three loose illustrated advertisements for other communist publications by Ediciones Frente Cultural (EFC), and a booksellers ticket on rear wrap from Libreria Navarro (EFC having been founded by Navarro owner, Enrique Navarro Orejel).

One copy? of this edition located by WorldCat, at UT-A. Cataloged page numbers differ vastly (47pp according to UTA). Later Spanish editions published in Europe include Dimitrov’s speeches from Comintern congresses in 1936 and 1937.

$225

Acción Femenina [title from cover]: V Asamblea

[Unión Femenina Católica Mexicana]. Acción Femenina [title from cover]: V Asamblea. Mexico, D.F.: Imp. Claret, 1940. Oblong 29.5 cm, 110, [1], pp.; 5 b/w plates from photographs, 1 pl. of O.L of Guadalupe; in stapled paper wrapper, separating from textblock at inside front hinge.

Conference publication documenting the 5th annual assembly of the women’s branch of Mexican Catholic Action, a proclerical lay community action group made up of many of the smaller organizations, including the women’s brigades, that played an important part in the Cristeros armed conflict. That conflict ended in 1929 with a series of compromises between the church and state and the women’s orgs were newly centralized under the national group, supervised by the diocese. This conference index and speeches illustrate continued Catholic resistance against secular education and other socialist post-revolutionary government policies, including divorce (no) women’s emancipation (no) and civil marriage (no).

OCLC finds no physical holdings in US libraries.

$100

Ciudad Concreto

Lorena Ochoa, Ana and Elena Poniatowska, Intro. Ciudad Concreto. México, D.F.: Cresce Consultores, 2010. Oblong 28 cm, 135 pp.; 29 pp. bilingual front matter and introductory text, followed by 101 pp. reproducing Lorena Ochoa’s photographs (most sheets printed recto and verso); in blind stamped cloth, title to front board and spine, one photographic print trimmed and tipped-in to front cover, cloth a bit rubbed, v minor scratches to front photo visible in raking light. One of 330 copies with a signed photograph (digital print) in corner mounts inside the front board, numbered and signed verso. VG+

Lorena Ochoa’s photobook documents the mostly indigenous construction workers who built the “Segundo Piso” of the periférico, Mexico City’s massive new ring road. From 2004-2005 she photographed their dangerous labor on the road’s famous second level and the precarious living circumstances they inhabited nearby. Poniatowska describes her as the “first and perhaps the only woman … to climb up one of the gigantic towers.”

The photographs are intended to humanize a massive urban infrastructure project and understand its legacy in the lives of the people who built it. Following examples like Jorge Fon’s renowned film Los albañiles (1976), Lorena Ochoa unveils both invisible labor and invisible people while also providing a view on the changing landscape of the ever-expanding city and a perhaps unintentional consideration of masculinity.

No copies located in North American libraries.

(HOLD)

Five Mexican Gay Liberation Movement Magazines

Five Mexican Gay Liberation Movement Magazines, 1989-1992.

Examples celebrating LGBT+ culture in Mexico at the height of the AIDS (SIDA) crisis: a period in which persecution and violence against gay and lesbian people in Mexico was still common (especially the murder of transsexuals and transvestites).

Comprised of:

41 soñar fantasmas: Información Gay lésbica. Núm 1. Mexico, D.F.: Centro de Información y Documentación de las Homosexualidades en México “Ignacio Alvarez” (CIDHOM) del Colectivo Sol, A.C., 1992. Large format, 34 cm, 32 pp.; profusely illustrated; in stapled color wrappers, lightly worn. Includes articles on SIDA, safe sex, personal ads, and coverage of the 1992 CMDX Pride parade in a color centerfold.

Macho Tips. Numero 22. Mexico, D.F.: Macho International, 1989.

Hermes. Números. 1-3. Mexico, D.F.: Febo Editores, 1990-1991. 23 cm, each 76 pp.; profusely illustrated. Stapled color pictorial wrappers. Three runs listed in OCLC, Cornell, Texas A&M, and ONE/UCLA. ONE Archives records seem to indicate a second iteration under the same title, published between 1992-1994.

$300

Flores en el desierto: Mujeres del Concejo Indígena de Gobierno

Muñoz Ramírez, Gloria. Flores en el desierto: Mujeres del Concejo Indígena de Gobierno. Mexico: Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung; Desinforémonos, 2018. Square, 22 cm, 175 pp.; profusely illustrated with color reproductions of photographs; color pictorial boards, extremities lightly rubbed, VG.

Interviews and photographs of ten women members of the Indigenous Government Council (Concejo Indígena de Gobierno [CIG]), a political body created in 2016 by the National Indigenous Congress (Council Congreso Nacional Indígena [CNI]) to be a collective indigenous voice united with the EZLN behind a single candidate for the Mexican presidency during the 2018 elections. The chosen candidate, María de Jesús Patricio Martínez, is a Nahua doctor, the CIG spokesperson, and the final interviewee in the present volume.

The book presents the striking stories of these women resistance leaders as they fight racism and the colonial legacy of dispossession to defend their history, language, natural resources, and sacred lands and ceremonies from “la hidra capitalista [que] avanza y avoraza todo lo que está a su alcance.”

The CIG/CNI’s governing principles are anticapitalist, autonomous, and horizontal: “Servir y no servirse, construir y no destruir, obedecer y no mandar, proponer y no imponer, convencer y no vencer, bajar y no subir, representar y no suplantar.”

A book produced intentionally in the public domain, unrecorded in OCLC either in physical or digital formats.

SOLD

Semblanza de la mujer mexicana y su participación en el movimiento obrero [...]

Becerril de Beltran, Graciana. Semblanza de la mujer mexicana y su participación en el movimiento obrero: Conferencia sustentada en el primer seminario interamericano de capacitación para la mujer trabajadora …. Mexico, D.F.: np, 961. 23 cm. 33 pp.; 4 b/w pls. from photographs, paper toned, small ink notations on p. 13, in stapled wrappers, a bit dogeared and chipped, with small loss at upper corner of front wrap.

Booklet reproduces a lecture on the history of Mexican women’s labor given by Graciana Becerril de Beltran, the secretary of labor relations at the Federacion Obrera de Organizaciones Femeniles de La República de Mexico (FOOF) at a training seminar for working women. Becerril de Beltran begins with a few names from precolonial history (Xochitl etc.), and continues through the colonial period, independence, the revolution, and into the present. She stresses the importance of the worker’s movement and union organizing to the recently successful suffrage movement and female education.

The four introductory plates reproduce photographs of Eva Sámano de López Mateo (first lady of Mexico); Fidel Velázquez (Secretary General of the Confederación de Trabajadores de Mexico); the author, and Hilda Anderson Nevarez (Secretary General of FOOF). Includes an introduction by Anderson Nevarez.

As far as we can determine, otherwise unrecorded.

$125

Los misterios desvelados [sic]; tratados de quirognomia; el árbol del ocultismo [...]

Moraima Gelo, Zulema. Los misterios desvelados [sic]; tratados de quirognomia; el árbol del ocultismo; la luz en el sendero. Mexico, D.F.: np, 1929. 18.5 cm, 92 pp.; frontispiece portrait and 3 b/w pls., minor area of faded color pencil underlining on p. 34; in contemporary half calf, spine with gilt lettering, heavily rubbed, lacking orig. wrapper? Manuscript signature and dedication on verso of half-title by the author to Arthur Garcia (with his ex-libris stamp).

Zulema Moraima Gelo, born Maria Ciriaca Resendis, was a glamorous fortune teller and chirologist in Mexico City in the 1920s and 1930s. She claimed to be of “African Moorish” descent; her exoticized stage name, taken from a contemporary opera, reflects the popularity of Orientalism in literature and art of the period. Although divination and cartomancy would have been a common aspect of certain theatrical and public performances in Mexico in the 19th century, fortune tellers with fixed addresses and private rooms emerged only slowly in the early 20th. Initially they requested municipal authorization for their businesses, but by 1919, when Zulema applied for permission, the Mexico City had turned against fortune telling and created a policy not only to refuse new licenses, but to withdraw those which had been granted, and to prosecute fortune tellers and cartomancers as frauds.

Zulema therefore moved her studio frequently, and circulated in sympathetic artistic and intellectual circles where spiritualism was admired (she was praised by the poet Jose Emilio Pacheco as “our maximal visionary”). Unfortunately today she is mostly remembered for a series of public scandals involving her romantic life and deceptive business practices.

The present volume appeared during the height of her fame, when she toured to Havana as an “Arab clairvoyant” and correctly predicted political and global events (the Spanish Flu, the death of a local politician). It offers personal interpretation and instruction on familiar conventions of palmistry and divination. Seemingly issued in very limited numbers, OCLC identifying only one copy, at the Biblioteca Nacional de México.

$450

See: Avilés, M. M. (2017). La suerte está echada. Clarividentes, adivinadoras, palmistas y cartomancianas. Alquimia 61.

El Espacio Escultórico

(Land Art) (Abstract art) (Mexico)

Centro de Investigación y Servicios Museológicos, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. El Espacio Escultórico. Mexico, D.F.: UNAM, 1980. 21.7 cm, 119 pp.; trilingual catalogue, profusely illus. in b/w, thumbed, with crease at fore corner affecting early pages; in color wrappers worn with creases, starting to separate at foot of spine, small chip in rear wrap.

This volume was the first and only monographic publication to document UNAM’s instantly recognizable, massive sculpture park. The park was one of Mexico’s most important public art projects in the second half of the 20th century. Conceived of by artist Federico Silva, the monumental works by Silva, Helen Escobedo, Manuel Felguérez, Matías Goeritz, Hersúa, and Sebastián respond to the extraordinary volcanic landscape of the surrounding ecological reserve incorporating elements of Land Art, pre-Hispanic imagery, and immersive geometric abstraction. The volume documents its planning, construction, and completion, including images of the architectural, archeological, and geological context of the site, the inauguration of the space, and the sculptures; together with artist biographies, artistic statements, and other short essays, followed by translations to English and French.

The colophon claims an edition of 3000. OCLC records fewer than 10 in public US collections, almost all museum libraries.

$400

Bajo las garras de la gestapo: 36 días en capilla

Romero Giménez, Carlos. Lizarraga Istúriz, Gerardo, Illus. Bajo las garras de la gestapo: 36 días en capilla. México, D.F.: Sociedad Mexicana de Publicaciones, 1943. 20 cm, 247, [6], pp.; text block toned, in orig. Illus. color wrappers by Lizarraga, frayed and discolored.

Romero Giménez was a leader of the Spanish Republican army during the Civil War, and a hero of the Defense of Madrid. At the end of the war he fled and was tried in absentia by Franco’s new government and twice sentenced to death. He first went to France where he played a leading role in the French Resistance; after his arrest and torture by the Germans he narrowly escaped the eastern death camps by the intervention of a Mexican diplomat who rescued him and his family from the Gurs concentration camp.

From 1942 until his death, he lived as an exile in Mexico, where he founded the publishing house that produced this memoir of his time in Bordeaux, his torture in the Gestapo prison at “Fort du Ha”, his escape, his recapture, and his journey from Gurs to Casablanca and finally, Mexico.

Illustrated by another Republican in exile, the antifascist organizer Gerardo Lizarraga, Remedios Varo’s ex-husband.

OCLC finds two US holdings: Harvard and LOC.

$250

Nota Roja: 27 Vintage Photos of Crimes and Accidents

Nota Roja: 27 Vintage Photos of Crimes and Accidents. [Yucatán, Mexico]: n.d., ca. 1970-1980. Vintage prints, sizes vary slightly, most approx. 13 x 9 cm. Slight curling, a few faded, overall VG+.
This collection presents 27 characteristic examples of Mexico’s nota roja photojournalism in Yucatán, possibly Merída. Nota roja is a genre of sensationalist, violent crime journalism central to Mexico’s tabloid press since the 1950s.

The group documents car crashes, murders, arrests, fires, crime scenes, bodies in the streets with curious crowds, and the death of a woman carrying a Confederación Nacional Campesina flag, presumably attacked during a demonstration.

The ubiquitous public display and consumption of such graphic imagery is often explained in relation to an emerging modern Mexican popular culture and national identity in the early- to mid-twentieth century. Some scholars have resisted the characterization of the nota roja as dehumanizing, writing instead about its reparative force: a public forum against political and institutional corruption. But the escalation of drug trafficking violence in Mexico, and the popularity of cultural forms which celebrate or romanticize this violence (tv shows; corridos; etc.), over the last twenty years has brought renewed criticism of nota roja style and its role in normalizing violence and spreading fear and apathy.

Vintage examples of a controversial photographic genre whose history and cultural importance remain central to contemporary conversations about violence in Mexico and Mexican popular culture.

$350

Allegorical Map of Mexico City and Environs

(Pictorial Cartography) Herrmann, Carlos. Allegorical Map of Mexico City and Environs. Mexico, D.F.: n.d, ca. 1930-1935. 63.5 x 92.3 cm. Image very good, blind margins a bit worn, beginning to fray.

A pictorial map of Mexico City, representing the natural, industrial, architectural, and cultural landmarks of the city. The artist blends indigenous styles and historical references with colonial and postcolonial features, identifying the key features of Mexico’s emerging modern national identity.

Probably printed in the 1930s during the Maximato, when as Delia Cosentino has argued, “the production, circulation, and consumption of such imagery offered the opportunity to imagine a uniquely animated geography coming into its own … [C]artography, [was] an advantageous way to shape the view of Mexico as a cohesive entity with a rapidly developing infrastructure and an evolving relationship with its own Indigenous past and present. [...]. Through these images dating to the first half of the 1930s, an international cadre of artists, travelers, publishers, government officials, and other boosters disseminated an integrated vision of Mexican cultural space and thereby coproduced the territory itself.” (1)

Known from a single other example, in the David Rumsey Map Collection.

$950

Notes:

1. Delia Cosentino. “Unfolding Maps during the Maximato in Mexico,” Latin American and Latinx Visual Culture 1.1 (January 2019).

Ricardo Aldape Guerra: ¡Condenado a muerte!

(Criminal Justice) (Wrongful Convictions) (Illegal Immigration) Jaubert, Sergio. Ricardo Aldape Guerra: ¡Condenado a muerte! Por un incidente de tránsito. Mexico: Edamex, 1989. 17 cm, 121 pp.; with b/w illus; pictorial wrapper.

Mexican criminologist Sergio Jaubert’s book was the first significant challenge to the wrongful conviction and death penalty for illegal immigrant Ricardo Aldape, found guilty of killing a Houston cop in 1982. Aldape’s eventual exoneration (1997) confirmed many of Jaubert’s theories about the biases and false evidence presented during the trial. The case became a landmark of what the judge called “outrageous” police misconduct; the jury was allowed to consider his status as an illegal immigrant during sentencing.

Aldape became a folk hero and the subject of corridos, novelas, and soap operas upon his return to Mexico, but he died in a car accident only four months later.

Jaubert’s book is profusely illustrated with evidence (photographic, ballistic, etc.) presented at the trial, with his own annotations and interpretations. Fewer than 10 physical holdings recorded in OCLC.

$225

La lucha política de las mujeres

Instituto de Estudios Políticos, Económicos y Sociales; Inter-American Commission of Women; Partido Revolucionario Institucional. La lucha política de las mujeres. México, D.F.: PRI, IEPES, 1990. 28 cm, 79 pp.; b/w illus. throughout, color pictorial wraps a bit rubbed with corner crease.

Highly politicized, propagandistic account of the women’s movement from the Revolution through suffrage (1952), emphasizing participation in the Revolution and achievements by individual women in government and agriculture (happy peasants!). Final brief section on post-1952 developments. No mention of the feminist struggles for additional civil and political liberties, voluntary motherhood, etc.

$90

Revista Mujeres Insurgentes

(Feminism) (Mexico) Pleites, Lidia, Ed. Revista Mujeres Insurgentes, No. 2. Mexico, D.F.: Federación Nacional de Mujeres Insurgentes, 1996. 28 cm, 15 pp.; color pictorial wraps. VG.

Curious feminist artifact of internecine Mexican political struggles in the 1990s, the short-lived magazine was allied with the controversial Partido Cardenista, which may have been a socalist-leaning front for the PRI in its electoral campaigns against the PRD.

Not recorded in OCLC.

$70

Mirlitón: El Compañero de Juan

​Enriqueta, Maria [Camarillo]. Mirlitón: El Compañero de Juan. Madrid: Juan Pueyo, 1918. First Edition. 19.4, 232 pp.; some foxing, esp. in first quarter of text block; illus. color wrapper, worn and splitting at rear. Signed and dedicated by the author on ffep.

Maria Enriqueta Camarillo was a contributor to the proto-feminist Mexican journal La Mujer Mexicana (1904-1906). She was the author of a mandatory Mexican grammar school textbook and many volumes of popular children’s literature in Mexico. Miriltón was her first novel, preceding her well-known work El Secreto (1922), which was praised by Paul Valéry and selected by L’Académie française for a prize in 1923.

She also translated works from classic French literature and philosophy into Spanish.

$125

Alrededor de México: Vista en los carros especiales de La Compañía Limitada de Tranvías Eléctricos

(Mexico) (Tourism) (Railways) Compañía Limitada de Tranvías Eléctricos de Mexico. Alrededor de México: Vista en los carros especiales de La Compañía Limitada de Tranvías Eléctricos de México. Mexico, D.F.: La Compañía, 1907. Oblong 14.7cm, 37, [2], pp.; 13 b/w pls. with captions; stapled brown paper wrappers, a bit thumbed, printed with “Obsequio La Compañía Limitada de Tranvías Eléctricos de Mexico” recto, “Compliments of…” [same] verso. Very Good.

Bilingual, early guide to exploring Mexico City by rail on the special parlor car service of the Mexico Electric Tramway system. These special cars make two trips daily and will be accompanied by “competent” guides to describe the sights. “Every foot of ground covered in these trips is replete with a constantly changing panorama of historical interest, combined with pleasure and romance.” Detailed trip itineraries are listed with schedules. Special cars can also be chartered! Other electric and animal-driven tram lines listed with points of interest for the tourist.

Rare, a single holding listed in OCLC: UC-Berkeley.

$450

Nine Photographs

Caballero, Antonio R. Nine Photographs, ca. 1965. Gelatin silver prints, six approx. 25.5 x 20.5 cm each; three approx. 17.5 x 12.6 cm each. All with studio stamp verso, some with editing marks verso or typed captions.

Antonio Caballero is recognized as a pioneer of the Mexican “fotonovela” genre; a narrative multi-image format published in various tabloids in the 1960s and 1970s that mirrored the style and melodramatic themes of telenovelas. In both a 2019 retrospective of his work at the Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City, and a 2011 exhibition in New York, his photographs in the style of the present group were praised for a campy, vernacular style that riffed on Pop motifs and quintessential aspects of 60s aspirational Mexican bourgeois culture.

Caballero is also known for an infamous, explicit photograph of Marilyn Monroe, taken at the Mexico City Hilton in 1962, a few months before her death.

$1050

Untitled Photograph

García, Hector. Photograph, ca. 1955-1960. Gelatin silver print, 24 x 19.5 cm. Studio stamp verso. Editor’s pencil crop marks recto. VG+.

Evocative print by the acclaimed Mexican photojournalist. Despite the historical significance of his work documenting the Pachuco culture and Mexico City’s slums in the 1950s, holdings of vintage García prints are scarce in US institutions and often limited to portraits of his famous friends (Kahlo, Rivera, etc.).

SOLD

Two Photographs

[Lazo, Rina Wasern and Diego Rivera]. Two Photographs, ca. 1950. 13 x 17.5 cm. One captioned verso, the other with marks by the photographer or editor. Crop marks recto.

Photographs depict the Guatemala muralist Rina Lazo with her mentor, Diego Rivera. The two painters worked together on a number of commissions, she is best known for her murals at the Museo Nacional de Antropología in Mexico City.

$250

75 Photographs of the Aftermath of the Mexico City Earthquake

75 Photographs of the Aftermath of the Mexico City Earthquake, 1985. Black and white gelatin prints, each 8.5 cm x 12 cm, a few over or under exposed, one duplicate. Uniform mild curling, VG. Sleeved.

Amateur photography of Mexico’s era-defining event, the 8.0 earthquake which struck the city in the early morning of September 19, 1985. Three to four minutes of shaking leveled much of the historic center, causing a still unknown number of deaths in addition to devastating losses to infrastructure and housing. The response of the PRI government was to create a media blackout; their denial of the seriousness of the damage led to riots, looting, and delays in search and rescue as well as emergency aid. Some historians believe the corruption exposed by the PRI’s mismanagement contributed to the end of their single-party rule fifteen years later.

Despite the fact that the international press had access to early photos of the destruction, many Mexicans did not see the extent of the damage for weeks or months. The unknown photographer of the current group appears to have taken some of the photos of police and armed guards surreptitiously, focusing their lens downward in the street to capture the activities of cleaning crews, people carrying water, and broken sidewalks. From buildings that may be identified, the photographer covered quite a bit of distance, including outer zones of the city and slums whose damage is not otherwise well documented.

Although most of the images are informally composed, some include the photographer’s shadow or demonstrate a more self-conscious presentation of the dramatic ruins.

SOLD

Agro: La Mejor Revista del Campo. Año I, No. 5.

Agro: La Mejor Revista del Campo. Año I, No. 5. (June 1955). Mexico, D.F.: Imp. Cal-Yu-Mex. 4to, 30 pp., pictorial illus. wrapper, chipped with small closed tears. Toned.

One issue of a government sponsored(?) agricultural serial distributed for free to “campesinos, agricultores, miembros de las Sociedades de Crédito Ejidal.” Sections on farming, labor organizing, health, and religion.

OCLC listed only at BNM (partial).

$50

Mitos y Leyendas de Teotihuacan [...]

[Dominguez, Francisco; Gonzalez, Carlos; and Efren Orozco Rosales] Departamento del Distrito Federal [México], Dirección General de Acción Cívica. Mitos y Leyendas de Teotihuacan. Creación del Quinto Sol; Sacrificio Gladiatorio: Escenificaciones Musicadas // Myths and Legends of Teotihuacan. Creation of the Fifth Sun; Gladiatory Sacrifices: Musically Arranged Scenes. Mexico, D.F.:, Imp. “Cosmos”, 1935. Tabloid, 29 pp.; program with illus. head- and tail-pieces, mostly repeating from Spanish to English sections, and map; stapled stiff card wrapper, with color illus. recto and verso. Damage to wrapper at lower forecorner, causing small area of loss through the text block (not affecting text or images). Rear wrapper chipped with earlier tape repair. Only fair.

Souvenir program for a musical event held at the Teotihuacan archeological zone for the international Lion’s Club convention in 1935 (the first time the annual convention was held in a non-English speaking country). Includes a map of the zone indicating where the performance took place and how visits were directed. More than 6,000 members attended the convention, where they were greeted by President Cárdenas.

$50

Primer Salon Nacional de la Estampa

[Guati Rojo, Alfredo]. Primer Salon Nacional de la Estampa. Exh. cat. [Mexico, D.F]: [Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes], 1972. Square 8vo, [36] pp.; profusely illus. checklist with reproductions of artists’ works. Stapled wrapper toned but tight, pinholes affecting second half of text block and rear wrapper.

A new salon for contemporary Mexican printmaking, bypassing the established “Salones Anuales de Grabado.” Including many important Mexican modernists and a wide array of styles.

Unrecorded in OCLC.

$50

Venus: Las Estrellas en Exclusiva! Nos. 73, 75-77, 79-82, 84-85, 88, 91-92, 95-104.

(Cinema) (Mexploitation) (Prensa Rojo) Samayoa Lizárraga, Carlos, Ed. Venus: Las Estrellas en Exclusiva! Nos. 73, 75-77, 79-82, 84-85, 88, 91-92, 95-104. México: D.F.: [Publicaciones Llergo], 1966. Small folio, 23 issues, each 31 pp., bound with orig. illustrated wrappers in contemporary cloth with orig. covers. Newsprint fragile and lightly toned, some minor chipping, creases.

A broken but substantial run of an otherwise unrecorded chiefly photographic tabloid featuring the major and minor actresses of Mexican cinema. Each issue with full-page centerfolds. The editor, Carlos Samayoa founded the iconic tabloid weekly Alarma! in 1963. As the original prensa rojo, Alarma! revolutionized the Mexican popular press and Samayoa (together with right wing publisher Regino Hernandez Llegro) led the era-defining transition to sensationalist journalism.

Venus follows Samayoa’s successful graphic formula at Alarma!, with a skillful combination of photography, eye-catching headlines, and gossipy industry columns. Issues are dedicated to well-regarded actresses and singers of the 1960s including Lilia Prado, Maria Victoria, Angélica María, Ana Bertha Lepe, Sonia Infante, Ana Martín Yolanda Montes (Tongolele), and Gina Romand. Retrospectively Venus documents a generation of women whose work on Mexploitation films has largely been forgotten. These include Mary Esquivel, Rossy Mendoza, Mayte Carol, Angelita Castany, Grace Polit, Marga Lopez, Ana María Fernández Pomar, Elsa Cárdenas, Eva Norvind, Jeanine Acosta, Fanny Cano, Maria Fuensanta, Malu Reyes, Vianey Lárraga, Olga Guillot, et al.

Articles written under pseudonyms report on social issues of the 1960s, including “skirts vs. pants,” and actresses exploited in border towns of Cd. Juarez and Tijuana by Northamerican tourists. Privilege given to actresses of Mexican origin, frequent accusations of malinchismo to those descriminating against Mexican beauties.

$900

Two programs celebrating the inauguration of Mexico’s Supreme Court buildings in 1904 and 1964

(Architecture) (Law) Santacruz y Olivier. Inauguración del Ala Poniente del Palacio de Justicia Civil [cover title]. [Mexico, D.F.]: Tip. de la Oficina Impresora del Timbre, 1904. Small folio, 36 pp.; 18 full page b/w reproductions of photographs and elevations with captions, texts facing, first leaf chipped with small losses, closed tear to fore-edge affecting all leaves, repaired with tape recto. Decorative wrapper, orig. stab bound, stained and rubbed, in recent protective mylar sleeve. Together with: Carvajal Herrera, Fernando, Ed. Palacio de Justicia del Distrito Federal Ad Perpetuam Rei Memoriam. Mexico, D.F.: Imprenta Ayuntamiento, 1964. 4to, 131 pp.; first 60 pp. a history of the courts and their organization, Mexican legal code, and the orig. courthouses on calle Donceles, the remainder a profusely illus. account of the new building by Juan Sordo Madaleno and Assoc., its construction and inauguration, some in color. Cloth, gilt title on front board. Edition of 1000.

The first a large, privately printed program celebrating the inauguration of the new national and federal district courthouses on calle Cordobanes (now Donceles). Produced by the engineers who directed the renovation of the buildings, the large plates are accompanied by text detailing the contracts, costs, and results of the work. The government requested the renovation to bring a “more adequate character to the important” offices whose “gloomy appearances” made a “poor impression on foreigners.” Approved in 1900, the work was not completed until 1904 due to engineering challenges discussed here at length. The physical separation of the federal and district courts was accompanied by their legal separation.

The buildings on Donceles remained the primary courts in Mexico City until the subject of the second volume, the new Palacio de Justicia del Distrito Federal, was completed in 1964. This edition was produced to commemorate Juan Sordo Madaleno’s modernist design, whose streamlined spatial organization was intended to reflect a similar rationalization of Mexico’s federal legal code. Exemplar of Latin American modernism as both a corporatist and nationalist aesthetic.

Both quite scarce, OCLC finding only one holding apiece, the former at UT-Austin, the latter at LA Law Library.

$550

Museos: Realizaciones y Proyectos

[Rivera, Ruth Marín]. Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes. Museos: Realizaciones y Proyectos. UNESCO/INBA [cover title]. Catalogue for an exhibition held at the Palacio de Bellas Artes, Departamento de Arquitectura, September-October, 1962. [Mexico, D.F.]: [Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes], [1962]. Oblong 4to, [88] pp.; mostly illustrations; illus. wrappers very worn, spine starting, crease affecting upper corner continues throughout text block.

Terrific catalogue of realized and unrealized museums in Mexico, curated by the director of the Department of Architecture at INBA, Ruth Rivera (Diego Rivera’s daughter). It introduces lesser known projects that were part of a huge surge in national modernist architecture during the 1950 and 1960s. These include three planned border museums in Matamoros; Tijuana; and Ciudad Juarez, all designed by Pedro Ramirez Vazquez under the auspices of the Programa Nacional Fronterizo.

Ruth Rivera’s key role as a promoter and archivist of Mexican modernist architecture is often overlooked. Her design for the Galerias Salon de la Plastica Mexicana is included here.

OCLC finds three holdings in North American institutions: Univ. of Arizona, UC Santa Barbara, and the CCA, Montreal.

$250

Acción Plástica Popular: Educación y Aprendizaje a Escala Nacional. Con ciento cinco reproducciones

(Arts Education) (Socialism) García Maroto, Gabriel. Acción Plástica Popular: Educación y Aprendizaje a Escala Nacional. Con ciento cinco reproducciones. México, D.F.: Editorial Plastica Americana, 1945. 8vo, 220 pp.; profuse b/w illus. from woodcuts by Mexican students and the author, plus [32] b/w pls. reproducing artworks from Mexico and Spain, as well as infographics and other designs by the author. In yellow pictorial publisher’s cloth, worn and darkened, corner’s bumped, spine with small losses to cloth at foot. Ink marks on ffep and rear pastedown.

Well-illustrated book about a short-lived experimental children’s art program, the Escuelas de Acción Artística (EAA). Iterations in both Mexico and Cuba built on the revolutionary educational ideals of the Escuelas de Pintura al Aire Libre, founded a decade earlier in Mexico City. The EAA incorporated these ideals with indigenous methods and styles, and prioritized free expression. These were important aspects of Indigenismo in Mexican arts in the early twentieth century, but the schools were later criticized for paternalistic assumptions about the “authenticity” of “naive” native arts.

The author, Gabriel García Maroto, was an exiled Spanish printer, artist, and critic who trained in one of Cuba’s Escuelas de Acción Artística in the late 1920s. He brought the EAA philosophy to Michoacan, founding several programs there with the support of governor (and future President) Lazaro Cárdenas. The schools taught print-making, drawing, and painting to predominantly indigenous and working-class women and children. Aligned with Cárdenas’s work on agrarian and land reform, García Maroto believed that his schools could teach the people to “possess” their land through art.

García Maroto was a member of avant-garde Spanish artistic circles in the 1920s and 30s. As a printer, he was an active member of the Republican Asociación de Intelectuales Antifascistas para la Defensa de la Cultura and had the distinction of publishing Frederico García Lorca’s first book. He began “Editorial Plastica Americana’’ with the intention of issuing a “Colección Plástica Mexicana” series but this appears to be the only title ever published under either imprint. After settling in Mexico, he also promoted art education for children with hearing problems. The book is dedicated to his son, the deaf painter Jose García Narezo.

See: Jolly, Jennifer. Creating Pátzcuaro, Creating Mexico: Art, Tourism, and Nation Building under Lázaro Cárdenas. Austin, TX: University of Texas, 2018, pp. 47-51.

$550

Arquitectura de la Ciudad de México: Guía

International Union of Architects. World Congress; Trueblood, Beatrice. Arquitectura de la Ciudad de México: Guía / Architectura [sic] du Mexico: Guide / Mexico City Arquitecture [sic]: Guide. México, D.F.: [International Union of Architects], [1978]. Tall 8vo, 199 pp.; b/w illus. of 74 sites, with 11 folding maps locating each building, pp. 167-173 misbound. In pictorial wraps, with 1 in. loss at spine, adhesive failing, one signature semi-detached. Fair only. Previous owner inscription on half-title.

Fascinating and thorough guide to the historical and modern architecture of Mexico City, prepared for the IUA’s 1978 World Congress. Many unexpected buildings featured among the more obvious highlights. All text given in Spanish, French, and English. Design by Beatrice Trueblood, co-designer of the ‘68 Olympiad graphics.

Scarce, OCLC finds four copies in the Americas: Harvard, Dumbarton Oaks, Library of Congress, Pratt.

$175

Plastica Bajacaliforniana: Selección Bienal 1977

Plastica Bajacaliforniana: Selección Bienal 1977. Exh. cat. [México, D.F.]: [Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes], [1977]. Square 8vo, [24] pp.; intro by critic Raquel Tibol, reproductions of artists’ works followed by bios and checklist. Stapled wrapper tight, a few small dents.

Catalogue of the second Baja artist biennial, held at the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes in Mexico City. One OCLC holding: LACMA.

$45

Centro Deportivo Chapultepec: Recuerdo de la Inauguración de los Nuevos Edificios

(Architecture) (Muralism) [Almanza, Gaspar Octavio]. [Romo, Ramiro]. Centro Deportivo Chapultepec: Recuerdo de la Inauguración de los Nuevos Edificios [cover title]. México, D.F.: [Junta Directiva del Centro Deportivo Chapultepec], 1950. 8vo, [32] pp.; chiefly illus. b/w reproductions of photos of the ceremony, building, and murals. Stapled pictorial wraps printed in blue recto and verso, edges chipped front and rear.

Souvenir program celebrating the inauguration of a new sports complex in Chapultepec Park, a collaboration between the Bank of Mexico and the government of President Alemán. Designed by architects Gonzalo Garita and Carlos Romo. The majority of the booklet is given over to a text by Almanza interpreting the building’s commissioned murals by Ramiro Romo Estada, a student of José Clemente Orozco. Concludes with excerpts of press coverage praising the government, etc.

A single holding located in OCLC: UC-Berkeley.

$100

10 Mujeres y Textil en 3D / 10 Women and Textile into 3D

Galleria Universitaria Aristos. 10 Mujeres y Textil en 3D / 10 Women and Textile into 3D. México, D.F.: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1975. Square 8vo, [16] pp.; intro, checklist and 11 b/w pls.; stapled pictorial wraps, sunned. Printed by Imprenta Madero.

Exh. cat. in Spanish and English, exploring contemporary fiber arts in Mexico, including Marta Palau, Leticia Arroyo, et al., and paying “homage to the creative weaver during the Women’s International Year.” Introduced by anthropologist and curator Marta Turok.

$60

Cuauhtemoc

[Valcárcel, Gustavo and Adolfo Mexiac (Illustrator)]. Cuauhtemoc. Serie Biografia, No. 1. México, D.F.: Instituto Nacional Indigenista, 1956. Small 8vo, 48 pp.; illus. throughout from linocuts and drawings by Mexiac, lightly toned; orig. stapled pictorial wrapper, sl. worn.

A condensed biography of the last Aztec Emperor with bold illustrations by Adolfo Mexiac. From an intended series of indigenous biographies of which only 2 vols. were seemingly published.

OCLC identifies only two copies in US libraries.

$150

Mexico

Comité Organizador de la Participación en la Exposición Ibero-Americana de Sevilla, Luis Alberto de Herrera, and Francisco A. Sáenz. Mexico. [Mexico]: Talleres gráficos de la nación, 1929. Oblong 4to, 591 pp.; full-page b/w pls. throughout, paper toned, pls. very good; 3/4 green cloth, corners bumped, paper labels stained.

Large format, encyclopedic album commissioned by the government’s department of propaganda to present the modern political and social structures, and economic successes of post-revolutionary Mexico to an international audience. Lavishly illustrated with tipped-in plates reproducing photographs of government buildings, schools, public transportation, industrial and commercial sites, and public works. Most plates with decorative borders inspired by Aztec designs. The album culminates with images and descriptions of the Mexican pavilion in Sevilla.

An important piece of propaganda describing the massive reforms of the post-revolutionary period, it was published under President Calles’ direction in the year that he founded the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), a time in which the “social revolution” was very much still at risk.

Example 440 of 3000.

$450