Foto Hermanos Mayo

Like the anonymous carvers of the pyramids, the unknown painters of the colonial churches, and the popular lithographers such as José Guadalupe Posada, the Hermanos Mayo are but one of the more recent expressions of that ancient Mexican tradition in which art is a product of the struggle for daily bread. However, this collective of photographers that has contributed to redefining Mexico's graphic journalism had its origin in a Spain about to explode into one of the modern world's great conflagrations: the Civil War. There, on the eve of so many hopes and such disappointment, the Mayos began their link with the ‘underdogs’ that has lasted to the present day. The pseudonym ‘Mayo’, which the five members of the collective have used — Francisco (Paco), Faustino, Julio, Cándido, and Pablo — is a nom de guerre that reflects both their commitment to the working class and the difficulties that can accompany such an undertaking.1

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