Juguetes Mexicanos. by FERNANDEZ LEDESMA, G[abriel] - 1930

Mexico DF: Talleres Graficos de la Nacion, 1930. First edition. Octavo (7 x 9 inches). [2], [1, half-title and blank], Includes all 52 leaves of tipped-in color illustrations of folk toys of Mexican children, each with a leaf of printed explanatory text describing the toy. In the copy all the print and text leaves are loose and laid into a muslin over boards portfolio, on the spine of which someone has carefully lettered in cut out letters and reading "Mexican Toys." Original colorful front wrapper laid in as well. A very clean and complete copy. One get the impression that an enterprising teacher used it as a teach tool. Scarce in the trade.Gaabriel Fernandez Ledesma (b. 1899) was a painter, muralist, engraver, photographer, writer, editor, designer and researcher of Mexican handcrafts and folk art. Fernández Ledesma began his career working on projects related to the government, often collaborating or assisting Roberto Montenegro. In the early 1920s, he was commissioned by then education minister José Vasconcelos to create modern tile designs for the church of the former monastery of San Pedro y San Pablo. He chose to revive Puebla Talavera tiles for this task. In 1922, he went to Rio de Janeiro as an assistant to Montenegro to design the murals that decorated the walls of the Mexican pavilion for the 1922 Centenary Exposition in Rio de Janeiro . When he returned from Brazil, education minister José Vasconcelos, appointed him artistic director of the Ceramics Pavilion at the faculty of Chemical Science.Most of the rest of Fernández Ledesma's career was related to publishing and education. In 1924, again with Montenegro, he illustrated an edifying book of Lecturas clásicas para niños and contributed to the El Maestro magazine and began a printing workshop to promote the development of engraving in Mexico. In 1926, he started a magazine called Forma, sponsored by the government about fine arts in Mexico, remaining as its editor for several years. In the 1920s, he also worked as an illustrator for the weekly magazine El Universal Ilustrado. In 1935, he became head of the editorial offices at the Secretará de Educación Pública. Fernández Ledesma edited and published several books on Mexican popular art, including Juguetes Mexicanos, published in 1930.[sic]His relationship with art education began in 1925, as a drawing teacher with the Secretaría de Educación Pública and, then in 1926 at the Centro de Arte Popular.[1] After rejecting the director's position at one of the Escuelas de Pintura al Aire Libre, Fernández Ledesma, his brothers and Guillermo Ruiz decided to create the Escuela de Escultura y Talla Directo a school for sculpture and carving. The school challenged the idea of art for art's sake, focusing on handcrafts and popular art, and teaching workers and children.[3] In 1928, he was one of the founding member of the "¡30-30!" movement along with Fernando Leal and Ramón Alva de Canal. This group was noted for its hostility to academia, trying to change how art students were taught, and its conviction that art should have a social purpose above all else.