Catrina in Red

Elegantly clad in a red and gold gown, La Catrina lifts the edge of her lacy, broad-brimmed hat. Maria Lozano in Mexico crafts the wonderful skeletal figurine from papier mache, painting it carefully by hand. Lozano designs the figurine after the original 'La Calavera Catrina', a zinc etching created by the artist José Guadalupe Posada in Mexico around 1910. Posada created the character, a female skeleton with an elegant hat, as a satirical portrait of Mexican natives who aspired to European style and denied their own heritage. The catrina has since become an emblem of Mexico's Day of the Dead celebration and a popular folk art subject.