Posada was a prolific illustrator that denounced the injustices of his time, but he is today mostly remembered for his "calacas."

Mexico has a long pictorial tradition dating back millennia, but few figures have had such an immediate impact in shaping culture as Jose Guadalupe Posada. His engravings of the Mexican life and traditions transcended the graphic medium they were published on to become a cultural staple to this day.

Posada was born in Aguascalientes, to a modest family. As a teenager he found work as an engraver and was soon hired as a newspaper illustrator. He worked in different media over the years, but his real success would come once he hit Mexico City, and worked on the creation of posters and other illustrations as well as his newspaper work.

His work is always satirical in nature, highly critical of the ruling classes and showing the daily life of common folks. In that sense he was very much in tune with the revolutionary sentiment that was brewing and would explode shortly before his death.

Today he is mainly known for his detailed engravings of skeletons or "calacas", so famous in fact, that his illustrations have become synonymous with the day of the dead, and his "catrina" skeleton (female dandy), is mistakenly used to name any Mexican skeleton.

He unfortunately died in Poverty, but his work has grown in importance to the point of becoming inseparable with Mexican culture, especially around the Day of the Dead.