The editorial categories are research topics that have guided researchers during the recovery phase and continue to be the impetus behind the Documents Project’s digital archive and the Critical Documents book series. Developed by the project’s Editorial Board, each of the teams analyzed this framework and adapted it to their local contexts in developing their research objectives and work plans during the Recovery Phase. Learn more on the Editorial Framework page.
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This is a letter of complaint sent by Julio C. Nájera to El Universal. His subject is the paintings of Jorge González Camarena, which the sender judges “immoral” due to the enormous nudes rendered in the paintings. Nájera believes that certain members of the society are “alarmed by such a disrespectful and defiant challenge to the most basic [standards of] decency.” He does not consider González Camarena’s frescoes to be “art,” since in his view the artist seems “not to understand the dictates of ethics and good manners.”
This is the second short article to appear in the conservative Mexico City newspaper, El Universal, to complain about the work entitled La vida [Life] by Jorge González Camarena (1908-80). The work is located in the important Edificio Guardiola in the center of the capital. The true identity of the author of this second letter is unknown, like that of the first, hidden behind the pseudonym Julio C. Nájera. It was originally believed that the source of the article was the prestigious Club de Banqueros, located on the top two floors of the building. Supposedly, the conspiracy also included the Mexican painter based in Europe for many years, Ángel Zárraga (1886-1946), who had decorated the club with elegant modernista allegories. Although the González Camarena paintings survived this controversy, they were ultimately destroyed for the same reasons 14 years later, in 1957.