José Clemente Orozco

(Mexican, 1883–1949)

José Clemente Orozco was a Mexican painter and one of the most esteemed among the Mexican Muralists, alongside Diego Rivera and David Alfaro Siqueiros. The artist’s skeptical attitude as well as his interest in pre-Columbian art played an important role in both his palette and subject matter. “Painting in its higher form and painting as a minor folk art differ essentially in this: the former has invariable universal traditions from which no one can separate himself, the latter has purely local tradition,” he once explained. Born on November 23, 1883 in Zapotlán, Mexico, his family moved to Mexico City when he was still young. Growing up in the capital, Orozco became interested in the political cartoons of José Guadalupe Posada and subsequently enrolled in drawing classes. After an accident involving fireworks in 1904, the artist was forced to have his left hand amputated. Despite this, he continued to pursue art at the San Carlos Academy. To support himself financially, Orozco worked as caricaturist for a number of newspapers, often focusing on the lives of destitute members of society. Between 1917 and 1919, he lived in both San Francisco and New York, working as a sign painter before returning again to Mexico. In 1927, he traveled back to the United States, producing a number of murals throughout the country, including Prometheus (1930) at Pomona College and Gods of the Modern World (1932) at Dartmouth College. The artist died on September 7, 1949 in Mexico City, Mexico. Orozco’s murals made a lasting impression on a number of younger painters, including Jackson Pollock, Philip Guston, and Jacob Lawrence. Today, his works are held in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.