Jose Clemente Orozco Complete Bio & Career
José Clemente Orozco moved from Zapotlán el Grande to Mexico City at a very young age with his family. His childhood was mostly spent in poverty. He was highly inspired by cartoonist José Guadalupe Posada whom he used to see while walking to school. He thought of art as a medium of expression. Since Mexico Revolution was heating up then, he decided to use artwork as an expression for a political revolt.
He was sent by his parents to pursue agriculture engineering at the age of 15. He though had no interest in it. Unfortunately, he lost his father during this time and after which, he decided to pursue he find interest in. Since his family’s financial conditions were not good, he also did various part-time jobs and helped her mother. Just when he was good enough to start his career a tragedy struck him as in an explosion, he lost his left wrist and arm. He got a job in a newspaper firm where he worked as a caricaturist for few years before finally hosting his first ever exhibition titled “The House of Tears”.
During the decade of the 1920s, he started creating murals. His basic idea behind switching to it was to paint murals on various public buildings as a way of campaigning messages by political parties. He did this for a very brief period but his work placed him among the best “Mexican Muralists”. Since he started addressing human sufferings through murals, he became immensely popular. Few years after his marriage, he relocated to the United States and stayed there for 10 years. It was during this period that America suffered the financial crisis of 1929. The first mural that he created in America was for the Pomona College in Claremont, California. Out of various murals that he created the most noted one was the Epic of American Civilization which was created at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. It took him over 2 years to complete that mural as it was around 3200 sq feet in size and was composed of 24 panels.
He finally returned to Mexico in the year 1934 and this time was welcomed warmly by his country mates. He was already in his 50s and was approached to paint at the Government Palace in Guadalajara. His mural titled “Sistine Chapel of the Americas” became a masterpiece. Among all his work Tank and Dive Bomber which glimpsed Second World War became world famous. His painting titled Allegory of the Nation which was done at Mexico’s National Teachers College also featured in Life Magazine. He did his last fresco in the year 1949. For next decades, he became a public advocate and addressed various issues and also told people the importance of painting as how it can be used as a medium to convey messages. For his contribution, he was felicitated with the National Prize for Arts and Sciences.
