Untitled (men waiting for elevator cage), from Las minas

Francisco Mora moved to Mexico City in 1941, where he studied with Diego Rivera and later joined the Taller de Gráfica Popular [People’s Graphic Workshop], one of the most influential and socially committed print collectives in the Americas. He became interested in mining in 1945, when he received a commission from the Association of American Artists to produce a series of lithographs about that subject. The following year he traveled to Pachuca, a central Mexican city, and spent time in the mines observing people at work. In this linoleum print, prepared for a new portfolio he called “Las minas,” Mora depicts the activities of the workers from dawn to dusk, highlighting their back-breaking labor.