Jose Guadalupe Posada played a vital role in the Mexican cultural revolution during the 20th century. However, it was not until after he died that people began to recognize him for his outstanding work. Guadalupe was born in Aguascalientes, Mexico on February 2nd, 1852, to Germán Posada Serna, and Petra Aguilar Portillo. He was born into quite a large family, as he is said to be one of eight siblings. Since he had such a large family, he went to work at an early age, setting a precedent of hard work and perseverance that stayed with him the rest of his life. Posada spent his childhood in Aguascalientes and received his early education from his brother who ran the local elementary school there. His brother taught him how to read, write, and…show more content… He obtained this experience by working in his uncle's pottery workshop as a child. So, the idea of creating art was not completely foreign to him when he began to pursue it. It was not until the 1860s when Jose received his first formal instruction in drawing at the Municipal Academy of Drawing in Aguascalientes. Many historians cannot put the exact timeline of Jose's artistic career together, but they do know that he slowly started to progress and in 1871 he was apprenticed to the print shop of Jose Trinidad Pedroza in Aguascalientes. Pedroza was a huge inspiration for Jose as he was studying under him when he began to break the mold of traditional art at the time by using it to express his opinions on social and political movements. Posada used his work to convey ideas that many people did not agree with, so because of that he would use skeletons or calaveras to protect himself from anyone who disagreed with his ideology. In fact, he had to move away from Aguascalientes in 1873 to work in a shop that he and a friend had built together in Leon. Simply out of the fear of retribution that his works had caused. He only moved again when a flood damaged his shop in Leon pushing him to move to Mexico City, Mexico where he remained until he died of gastroenteritis on January 20th, 1913, at the age of
