José Clemente Orozco

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

José Clemente Orozco. Photo Credit: Edward Weston

José Clemente Orozco (born November 23, 1883, in Zapotlán el Grande (now Ciudad Guzmán), Jalisco; died September 7, 1949, in Mexico City) was a Mexican social realist painter who specialized in bold murals. Orozco was fond of the theme of the human versus the mechanical. He was also a genre painter and lithographer. He studied in Mexico City at the San Carlos Academy. With Diego Rivera, he was a leader of the Mexican Renaissance. An important distinction he had from Rivera was his critical view of the Mexican Revolution. While Diego was a bold, optimistic figure, touting the glory of the revolution, Orozco was less comfortable with the bloody toll the social movement was taking.

With such Mexican artists as Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros and Rufino Tamayo, he began to experiment with fresco painting on large walls. One of his most famous murals is The Epic of American Civilization at Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, USA. It was painted between 1932 and 1934 and covers almost 300 m² (3200 square feet) in 24 panels. Another of his murals is to be found at the New School for Social Research, now known as the New School University.