This book explores the work of some great Mexican artists from the first half of the twentieth century in the area of illustrations and posters. Based on an exhibition held in 2010 at the Museo Valenciano de la Ilustración y la Modernidad (MuVIM) in Valencia, Spain, Mexico Illustrated offers a selection of the best illustrations from books, magazines, and posters published from 1920 to 1950.

Representative of the various aesthetic, pedagogical, political, and propagandistic trends of the period, the volumes contains work in defense of the Mexican Revolution and illustrations for children’s books, socialist essays, and novels, along with a large number of contributions to magazines that oscillated between the avant-garde and the construction of a new vision of Mexico and the Mexicans. The artists represented include Diego Rivera, Ramón Alva de la Canal, Jean Charlot, Miguel Covarrubias, Dr. Atl, Carlos Mérida, Gabriel Fernández Ledesma, and Leopoldo Méndez.

Published in Spanish and English, with more than three hundred illustrations, the volume includes texts by Juan Manuel Bonet, Mercurio López Casillas, Dafne Cruz, and Marina Garone, who deal with the relations between Mexico and the European avant-garde movements, the socialist aesthetic, children’s literature, graphic design, and the cartography of post-revolutionary Mexico.