The Rights of the Working Class Derecho de la Clase Obrera

Date

1951

Creator

Members of the TGP [Taller de Gráfica Popular] looked to [José Guadalupe] Posada’s prints and appropriated the vernacular tradition that he had popularized. In Derecho de la Clase Obrera, Pablo O’Higgins borrows his predecessor’s signature motif of the calavera to communicate his own message of social satire. O’Higgins may well have printed this small 1951 lithograph during the Día de los Muertos celebrations. His image parodies the division between the working and upper classes. A scholar and a woman, depicted as living skeletons, laugh as they dance in a frenzy; they represent education and luxury cavorting out of reach of the working class. Not only does O’Higgins quote Posada’s calaveras but he also evokes the titles or labels that Posada often included in his prints: in the bottom left corner, he adds a scroll reading, "the rights of the working class." from Costa, Para la Gente: Art, Politics and Cultural Identity of the Taller de Gráfica Popular (Notre Dame, 2009)