Clark Art Presents Lecture on José Guadalupe Posada

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Clark Art Institute will a talk by Dr. Diane Miliotes entitled “Calaveras, Catrinas, and Dandies: José Guadalupe Posada and the Penny Press” On Sunday, July 31 at 2 p.m.

Presented in conjunction with the Clark’s current exhibition, José Guadalupe Posada: Symbols, Skeletons, and Satire, the lecture takes place in the Clark’s auditorium and will be broadcast simultaneously via Zoom.In this talk, Miliotes, who has written on the artist and on Mexican printmaking in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, discusses graphic artist and illustrator José Guadalupe Posada and the historical context of his image production in nineteenth-century Mexico.

Posada’s career spanned profound social and political changes in Mexico. Miliotes pays special attention to a number of key characters in Posada’s printmaking practice, including the iconic calaveras (skeletons) that are so closely associated with the artist.

José Guadalupe Posada (1852–1913) was recognized already in 1888 as “the foremost caricaturist, the foremost graphic artist” of his native Mexico. A tireless producer of caricatures and satirical imagery for the penny press, Posada built his career in an era of political repression and lived to see the profound social changes brought by the Mexican Revolution of 1910. His pictorial contributions to broadsides, or ephemeral news sheets, provided a daily diet of information and entertainment to a public for whom images needed to tell the story since literacy was not widely prevalent at that time. On view in the Eugene V. Thaw Gallery for Works on Paper through October 10, 2022, the Posada exhibition showcases the vibrant visual culture of Mexico in the years before its 1910 Revolution. 

José Guadalupe Posada: Symbols, Skeletons, and Satire is organized by the Clark Art Institute and curated by Anne Leonard, Manton Curator of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs. This exhibition is drawn from the extensive Posada holdings of the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth, Texas.

The event is free and open to the public. Advance registration is required to view the Zoom transmission. Registrants will receive an email with a private Zoom link before the event. For more information and to register, visit clarkart.edu/events.

'Nobody' Better Than the Mount Greylock Class of 2024

By Tammy DanielsiBerkshires Staff
03:43PM / Saturday, June 08, 2024

Class speaker Judge Martin offered apologies all around for the chaotic class of 2024. See more photos here.

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The class speaker for the 104 graduates of Mount Greylock Regional School apologized for the wild and crazy antics of the class of 2024. 

 

"Our class was not that easy. We came into this brand-new school like a bull in a china shop. It was crazy," Judge Martin said. Students came into the middle school from surrounding towns, and "with that mix of kids, chaos happened." 

 

They lost field trip privileges, the right to use the staircase and claimed credit for the burst pipe that flooded the new school and sent everyone home early just days before the entry into remote learning because of the pandemic.

 

"On behalf of my class, we apologize for the mess," Martin said. "But look at us now — we're no longer those middle schoolers everyone hates, no longer causing water damage in our school. And surprisingly, no longer the worst middle school class to come through Mount Greylock, which was really a hard title to take but somehow the grades below us found a way."

 

He was also sorry it took so long for the class to realize how amazing they are and apologized for taking them all for granted.

 

"We're sorry to this school and everything we put it through most importantly thank you for giving us the time to grow out of chaos and find our identity in the end," Martin said. 

 

Martin gave a shout out to Superintendent Jason McCandless, who announced his retirement at the end of the school year, calling him "our favorite superintendent" to loud applause.