Who expanded La Catrina into a full figure with a long dress?

Diego Rivera expanded La Catrina into a full figure with a long dress. He incorporated Posada’s skeletal character into his 1946–47 fresco, “A Dream of a Sunday Afternoon in the Alameda Park.”

José Guadalupe Posada’s earlier image showed a skeletal woman mainly as a bust wearing a large bourgeois-style hat. Posada’s satire targeted social pretension during the Porfiriato, especially people who rejected Mexican identity while imitating European fashions.

Rivera transformed the image’s meaning. His Catrina appears between Posada and a child version of Rivera, with Frida Kahlo nearby. Rather than simply giving her a European gown, Rivera used a Tehuana-style skirt and added Mesoamerican references, including a feathered serpent associated with Quetzalcoatl.

A common mix-up is crediting Rivera with creating La Catrina. Posada created the original image; Rivera enlarged and reinterpreted it as a national symbol. The mural, originally painted for the Hotel del Prado, is now displayed at the Museo Mural Diego Rivera in Mexico City.