With her elaborate hat, skeletal face and elegant clothing, La Catrina has become one of the most recognizable figures in Mexican culture. She appears in murals, prints, sculptures, ceramic figures, fashion, photography and Día de Muertos celebrations throughout Mexico.

Her familiar appearance can make her seem like an ancient character whose meaning has remained unchanged for centuries. Her history is more complex. La Catrina emerged from Mexico’s popular print culture at the beginning of the twentieth century. Diego Rivera’s later reinterpretation helped establish her as a national symbol.

Her story connects representations of death with social satire, public art and Mexico’s evolving cultural identity.

Mexico’s long relationship with death

Images of skulls and skeletons existed in Mexico long before La Catrina. In Mexica religious thought, life and death could be understood as complementary parts of existence. Other Mesoamerican societies had their own beliefs and practices concerning ancestors and the afterlife.

After the Spanish conquest, Indigenous traditions were transformed through colonization and Catholic conversion. Over the following centuries, regional customs, religious observances and family remembrance developed through these encounters. Today’s Día de Muertos reflects this complex history, with practices that vary between communities.

European Christian imagery also used skulls as reminders of mortality and the temporary nature of earthly status. Such imagery provides another part of the broader visual context in which Mexican representations of death developed.

In many communities, Día de Muertos welcomes the returning spirits of deceased relatives through offerings of food, flowers and other meaningful objects. La Catrina belongs to the much later history of Mexican printmaking, although she now appears in many celebrations of the holiday.

José Guadalupe Posada and Mexico’s popular prints

Born in Aguascalientes in 1852, José Guadalupe Posada worked as an illustrator, engraver and printer. His work appeared in inexpensive newspapers, pamphlets and single-sheet publications sold on the streets.

Posada illustrated news stories, crimes, political events, religious subjects and scenes from everyday life. He became especially famous for his calaveras: animated skeletons that danced, drank, rode bicycles and imitated the behavior of the living. He worked within a popular tradition also practiced by printmakers such as Manuel Manilla.

These skeletons were humorous, dramatic and socially observant. Their activities caricatured the habits and ambitions of the living, bringing questions of class and mortality into everyday print culture.

They were also connected to calaveras literarias, humorous verses that imagined living people encountering death. These playful epitaphs often criticized public figures and social behavior while entertaining readers during the season of Día de Muertos.

From the Calavera Garbancera to La Catrina

Posada’s image now commonly known as La Calavera Garbancera is generally dated to the early 1910s, although its exact creation date remains uncertain. Historian Agustín Sánchez González identifies 1913 as its first documented publication, in a broadside issued by the printing house of Antonio Vanegas Arroyo. Posada died in January that year.

The design shows a skull and skeletal shoulders beneath an enormous feathered hat. The contrast between fashionable headwear and exposed bones creates its visual joke. A later printing in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s collection preserves this familiar design.

The 1913 broadside refers to garbanceras, women selling chickpeas, and mocks their fashionable pretensions. The association with European dress has also encouraged readings about class aspiration and the rejection of Indigenous or mestizo identity. Art historian Ruben C. Cordova stresses that the accompanying verses were not written by Posada and that publishers reused his images with different texts. The published satire therefore reflects the interaction between image, verse and publisher.

Looking at the original print alongside later versions reveals how much her identity has changed. A single illustrated sheet eventually became the starting point for a widely recognized cultural figure.

How Diego Rivera transformed her

The figure’s greatest transformation came more than three decades later.
In 1947, Diego Rivera included her in his monumental mural Sueño de una tarde dominical en la Alameda Central, or Dream of a Sunday Afternoon in Alameda Central. The mural presents centuries of Mexican history as an imaginary gathering in one of Mexico City’s oldest parks.

Rivera placed La Catrina at the center of the composition. She holds the hand of Rivera, represented as a child, and links arms with José Guadalupe Posada. Frida Kahlo stands behind the young Rivera. Rivera gave her a full body and a long skirt, with a feathered-serpent boa around her shoulders. Cordova interprets the boa as a reference to Quetzalcóatl. The linked figures can also be read as Rivera’s homage to Posada and his claim to an artistic inheritance rooted in popular printmaking.

Her place in the mural gives the earlier print a new setting and significance. Surrounded by historical figures, she becomes part of Rivera’s larger interpretation of Mexico and his own place within it.

The name Calavera Catrina was already associated with the image in a 1930 publication of Posada’s work, before Rivera painted the mural. Catrina is the feminine form of catrín, a word for a finely dressed man or dandy. Rivera’s mural helped popularize the full-length figure now familiar to visitors. The original mural can be seen at the Museo Mural Diego Rivera, beside Alameda Central in Mexico City.

What does La Catrina mean?

La Catrina has no single fixed meaning. Her significance has changed as artists and communities have reinterpreted her. These are some of the ways her image can be read.

Equality before death

Her skeletal form recalls the mortality shared by people of every social class. The extravagant clothing adds irony: symbols of status remain visible even when the person beneath them has become a skeleton.

A criticism of social pretension

The combination of elaborate fashion and bare bones invites reflection on vanity and the desire to appear wealthy. The hat becomes both beautiful and absurd when worn by a skeleton.

A symbol of Mexican identity

Rivera placed La Catrina within his vision of Mexican history and culture. Later artistic and popular uses helped make her a widely recognized expression of Mexican identity.

A celebration of memory

Within Día de Muertos, Catrina imagery can become part of remembering loved ones. Artists may personalize figures with clothing and objects associated with a particular person. UNAM’s account of the Ronces family’s cartonería, or papier-mâché work, offers one example of this connection between craft and remembrance.

A vehicle for artistic expression

Artists continually redesign La Catrina through regional clothing, flowers and personal symbolism. Her recognizable form provides a foundation that can be adapted to new stories and contemporary concerns.

La Catrina in Mexican art

La Catrina’s journey from an inexpensive street print to a monumental mural demonstrates the influence of popular art on Mexico’s cultural history. Posada’s work inspired generations of printmakers and muralists. Artists including Rivera and José Clemente Orozco admired his work and helped establish his place in the history of modern Mexican art.

Today, La Catrina appears across many artistic forms. Painters and muralists place her in historical or contemporary scenes. Ceramic and papier-mâché artists turn her into sculptural figures. Photographers and makeup artists transform living models into modern Catrinas.

New interpretations can also connect the figure to education and public debate. At a 2025 UNAM event, Catrina costumes celebrated women in science and access to knowledge, using details such as maize, DNA and scientific imagery. This flexibility has helped La Catrina remain relevant. Each generation can recognize her while giving her a different voice.

La Catrina and Día de Muertos

La Catrina is now strongly associated with Día de Muertos, particularly in public parades, exhibitions and visual celebrations. People wear elaborate dresses and paint their faces as decorated skulls, often adding flowers and other personal details.

The holiday includes a much wider range of practices centered on remembering the dead. Family offerings, cemetery visits and community observances vary across Mexico. La Catrina’s prominence in public festivities does not mean that she is equally important to every family or community.

Understanding this history allows visitors to appreciate the figure with greater care. Her design carries the legacy of Mexican printmaking, social commentary and public art, while her contemporary uses continue to evolve.

Why La Catrina remains important

La Catrina survives because she can communicate serious ideas through beauty and humor. She invites reflection on the temporary nature of social appearances. She connects everyday popular culture with the work of major Mexican artists. She also demonstrates how one image can acquire new meanings as it moves between historical periods, artistic media and communities.

Posada created a skeletal woman in an extravagant hat. Rivera placed her at the center of his vision of Mexican history. Later artists and communities transformed her into a symbol recognized throughout the world.

Behind the flowers, face paint and elegant clothing lies a history of satire and reinterpretation. Looking closely at La Catrina opens questions about identity, memory, status and mortality.

Discover La Catrina and Mexican public art in Mexico City

Visitors can see Rivera’s celebrated interpretation of La Catrina at the Museo Mural Diego Rivera, near Alameda Central. The mural places her among writers, politicians, workers, revolutionaries and artists from Mexico’s past.

To explore her place in Rivera’s work, join our Private Mexico City Muralism Tour. Visit the Museo Mural Diego Rivera, Palacio de Bellas Artes and Casa de los Azulejos with an art guide who helps you read the characters, symbols and political ideas behind the murals.

Continue exploring Mexico’s visual culture on our Private Mexico City Street Art Tour. Discover murals and graffiti in the historic center, learn to recognize different styles and techniques, and explore the ideas that artists bring to the city’s streets. It’s a chance to notice details you might otherwise walk past and understand more of the city through its art.