How One Man Created Mexico’s World Famous ‘Catrina’

Born in Aguascalientes in 1852, José Guadalupe Posada was a prolific Mexican engraver, illustrator, and cartoonist, widely recognized as one of the most influential artists in his country’s history. From a very young age, he showed an exceptional inclination and talent for drawing. His formal training began in the workshop of José Trinidad Pedroso in Aguascalientes, where he learned the trade of lithography. By 19, he published his first political cartoons in El Jicote.

After settling in León, Guanajuato, where he worked as a lithography teacher and created religious and commercial images, a natural disaster (a great flood in 1888) forced him to move to Mexico City. It was in the capital where his career reached its peak. He collaborated with the leading publications of the time, such as La Patria Ilustrada, El Ahuizote, and El Hijo del Ahuizote.

However, his most fruitful and famous collaboration was with the publisher Antonio Vanegas Arroyo. Together they produced a vast quantity of “hojas volantes” (broadsides, or prints on a single sheet of paper). These popular publications, accessible to the masses, narrated sensationalist news, crimes, ballads, legends, and political satire. Posada developed a direct, vigorous style full of black humor, using techniques such as relief engraving on metal (primarily on zinc or lead plates, a method sometimes called “zincography”).

The Calaveras: Satire and Social Critique

It is estimated that Posada created more than 20,000 engravings. His most emblematic theme was the “calaveras” (skulls or skeletons): skeletal figures engaged in the activities of the living. These works, full of irony, were associated with the Day of the Dead but also functioned as biting social criticism. They depicted politicians, the bourgeois, revolutionaries, peasants, and high-society ladies, reminding everyone that death is the great equalizer. Through them, Posada denounced the injustices, corruption, hypocrisy, and profound inequalities of the Porfirio Díaz regime (the Porfiriato), laying the visual groundwork for the imminent Mexican Revolution.

The Birth of an Icon: La Catrina

His most enduring creation is the Calavera Garbancera. Initially, this skeletal figure adorned with a luxurious feathered hat was a satire aimed at the garbanceros (chickpea sellers) — Indigenous or mestizo people who had become wealthy and pretended to deny their roots by adopting European fashions and aspiring to a white, aristocratic lifestyle. The skull, devoid of flesh but still wearing the hat, exposed the futility of these pretensions.

It was the muralist Diego Rivera who, decades later, christened her “La Catrina.” In his mural Dream of a Sunday Afternoon in the Alameda Central (1947), Rivera depicted her full-length, wearing an elegant dress and arm-in-arm with Posada, cementing her status as the universal icon of Mexican culture we know today.

Despite his immense productivity and influence, Posada died in poverty in 1913 and was buried in a common grave. However, his legacy resurfaced with great force after his death. The great post-revolutionary muralists, such as José Clemente Orozco, David Alfaro Siqueiros, and Diego Rivera, proclaimed him a fundamental precursor and “the prototype of the artist of the people.” They recognized in his work an authentic expression of national art and a source of inspiration for the muralist movement.

La Catrina and calaveras maintain profound contemporary importance in Mexico, especially during Día de Muertos. They have evolved beyond their original satirical message to become ubiquitous symbols of the holiday’s central philosophy: a joyful acceptance of mortality and a celebration of life.

In modern celebrations, these elegant skeletons are a powerful visual language, reminding people to laugh at death and honor their ancestors with festivity, not sorrow. They permeate art, fashion, and public altars, serving as a unifying cultural touchstone that connects Mexicans to their indigenous and mestizo heritage, asserting a unique national identity centered on a heartfelt, irreverent communion with the departed.