ON THE COVER

Working in the vein of the artists of Mexico’s renowned print studio, the Taller de Gráfica Popular (TGP), Sergio Sánchez Santamaría creates strong graphic prints that honor the Mexican people and the folk heroes of his homeland, such as the revolutionary figure Emiliano Zapata. A show of prints by Santamaría, who keeps the aesthetics of the TGP relevant to contemporary times, opens with a reception at the New Mexico History Museum on Saturday, Oct. 21. The exhibit is shown in conjunction with the museum’s current exhibit A Mexican Century: Prints From the Taller de Gráfica Popular. On the cover is a linotype portrait of Feliciano Polanco, a beloved Zapatista from Santamaría’s hometown.

The power, clarity, and style of the prints of Sergio Sánchez Santamaría owe much to the technical mastery of the artists of the Taller de Gráfica Popular. The TGP, an influential print workshop formed in 1937, was most active from the 1930s to the early 1960s and was formed, in part, to address injustices and rights issues among the Mexican people. Many of the themes of the TGP, which are of concern to Santamaría, derive from leftist politics and social concerns of the Mexican Revolution, a period in Mexico’s history often celebrated in the works of TGP artists. “There’s been an evolution from the past,” Santamaría said. “Things are different, but to be able to get the message across artistically, it’s the same. With social media, art is passing into another plane. Nevertheless, it’s the same type of artistic treatment of the issues.”

Santamaría said that TGP co-founder Leopoldo Méndez (1902-1969) is a primary influence on his own work. “He is, for me, the best printmaker in Mexico of all time. The strange thing about my work as a whole is that it all combines history and the contemporary, and you’ll find it in individual pieces, too.” An exhibition of Santamaría’s work opens with a reception on Saturday, Oct. 21, in the Meem Room at the New Mexico History Museum. The show was mounted in conjunction with the exhibition A Mexican Century: Prints From the Taller de Gráfica Popular.

Among the images are portraits of Santamaría’s ancestors — contemporaries of Emiliano Zapata (1879-1919), a major figure during the Mexican Revolution who helped form a peasant rebellion. “My great-grandfather [Col. Cristino Santamaría] was a musician who led a group of young men into battle with Zapata,” he said. Santamaría’s other greatgrandfather also rode and fought alongside Zapata. Several of the prints on view are homages to folk heroes like Zapata, who hailed from Anenecuilco in Morelos, where Santamaría is from. The exhibition also has a portrait of Ruben Jaramillo, who fought for land reform and for the rights of (tenant farm workers) in the decades after the revolution. Jaramillo and his family, including his pregnant wife, were kidnapped by federal officers in 1962 and executed. His struggle was immortalized in the song “Bullets of Mexico” by American protest singer Phil Ochs. “There’s a didactic factor in my work because

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