Study for Anglo-America (Panel 13) for The Epic of American Civilization
José Clemente Orozco, Mexican, 1883 - 1949
about 1930-1934
Graphite on cream paper
Overall: 18 1/4 × 20 3/4 in. (46.4 × 52.7 cm)
Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth: Purchased through gifts from Kirsten and Peter Bedford, Class of 1989P; Jane and Raphael Bernstein; Walter Burke, Class of 1944; Mr. and Mrs. Richard D. Lombard, Class of 1953; Nathan Pearson, Class of 1932; David V. Picker, Class of 1953; Rodman C. Rockefeller, Class of 1954; Kenneth Roman Jr., Class of 1952 and Adolph Weil Jr., Class of 1935
D.988.52.174
Geography
Place Made: Mexico, North America
Period
20th century
Object Name
Drawing
Research Area
Drawing
Not on view
Inscriptions
Inscribed, in graphite, lower right: 235; inscribed, in graphite, upper center: center, 8'7"; inscribed, in black ink, on reverse, lower left: 17@DC; inscribed, in graphite, lower right: 61.1780.17
Label
José Clemente Orozco made hundreds of preparatory sketches for his early 1930s mural, The Epic of American Civilization, located in Dartmouth’s Baker Library. In this study, the face of an ambiguous “Founding Father” is the same size as the schoolhouse in the background. They both loom over the teacher and students. In the final mural, this figure disappears into the schoolteacher herself, whose face resembles George Washington’s. In both the mural and this study, this historical figure highlights how US education promotes nationalism by not fully reckoning with the nation’s entangled, complicated, and often violent history.
Comparative illustration: José Clemente Orozco, The Epic of American Civilization: Anglo-America (Panel 13), fresco, 120 x 103 in. (304.8 x 261.6 cm). Commissioned by the Trustees of Dartmouth College; P.934.13.15
From the 2022 exhibition Historical Imaginary, curated by Michael Hartman, Jonathan Little Cohen Associate Curator of American Art
Course History
SPAN 7, Transforming Public Space: Mural Art in Mexico and the US, Douglas Moody, Winter 2013
ARTH 16, LACS 48, Mexican Muralism, Mary Coffey, Spring 2012
ARTH 72, Mexican Muralism, Mary Coffey, Spring 2015
SPAN 7.05, Transforming Public Space: Mural Art in Mexico and the United States, Douglas Moody, Winter 2019
ARTH 40.04, LACS 30.09, Mexicanidad: Constructing and Dismantling Mexican National Identity, Mary Coffey, Winter 2019
Film Studies 42.23, Travelers and Tourists, Heidi Denzel, Spring 2023
History 63.02, Reading Artifacts: The Material Culture of Science, Whitney Barlow Robles, Spring 2023
Exhibition History
Historical Imaginary, Luise and Morton Kaish Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, May 31-August 16, 2023.
Jose Clemente Orozco in the United States, 1927-1934, San Diego Museum of Art, San Diego, California, March 9-May 19, 2002; Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, June 8-December 15, 2002; Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil, Mexico City, Mexico, January 25-April 13, 2003.
Publication History
Renato Gonzalez Mello and Diane Miliotes, Jose Clemente Orozco in the United States, 1927-1934, Hanover: Trustees of Dartmouth College (Copublished by W.W. Norton and Company), 2002, p. 174, fig. 217, listed p. 296.
Provenance
Artist; by descent to the Orozco Family, about 1949; purchased by the present collection, 1988.
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