From the Track of This Famous Hippodrome, Not a Single Journalist Will Be Missing. Inexorable Death Has No Respect, Not Even for Those You See Here Riding Bicycles.

José Guadalupe Posada (Mexican, 1852-1913)

after 1895

Medium: Relief engraving or photo-relief etching (engraving style) in black on tan wove paper
Classification: Print
Dimensions: 60.1 × 40.5 cm (23 11/16 × 16 in.)
Culture: Mexico
Museum: Art Institute of Chicago, Prints and Drawings
Credit line: William McCallin McKee Memorial Endowment, Joseph Brooks Fair and John H. Wrenn Memorial collections
Rights: Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
Who can see it: Teens profiles and older: its subject is for older viewers (war, death, the Passion, drink or the like). How works are placed

About this work

The mainstream press was also a target in Posada’s day. This satirical broadside shows bicycle-riding calaveras representing various newspapers who compete in a headlong race. Comically and symbolically attired, the competitors include the Roman Catholic daily El Tiempo, who wears a mitre and appears as Father Time, and El Partido Liberal, who wears a Phrygian cap.

Español: La prensa dominante fue también objeto de duras críticas durante la época de Posada. Esta satírica hoja volante muestra a un grupo de calaveras en bicicletas. Cada una representa a un periódico particular compitiendo desesperadamente en una apurada carrera. Ataviados con vestimentas cómicas y simbólicas, entre los competidores se encuentran el diario católico El Tiempo, que luce una mitra y cuya imagen remite a la figura del mítico padre del tiempo Cronos, y El Partido Liberal, que porta un gorro frigio.