The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 5, 2023

Study for the Mural “Aboriginal Races” (for the National Preparatory School, Mexico City)

1926

José Clemente Orozco

(Mexican, 1883–1949)

Mexico, 20th century

Graphite

Sheet: 32.2 x 31.8 cm (12 11/16 x 12 1/2 in.)

Gift of Mrs. Malcolm L. McBride 1945.253

© José Clemente Orozco / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / SOMAAP, Mexico

Location

not on view

Fun Fact

The National Preparatory School murals were José Clemente Orozco's first major commission, shared with the artists Diego Rivera and David Alfaro Siqueiros.

Description

José Clemente Orozco created this drawing as a study for his first mural, which Mexico’s minister of education commissioned as a series for the National Preparatory School, a prestigious secondary school in Mexico City. Over the course of two phases of work, between 1922 and 1926, Orozco covered the building’s stairways and corridors with allegorical and political subjects from Mexican history. This drawing is one of several in which the artist worked out a composition depicting the country’s earliest inhabitants.

Inscriptions

Inscription

signed in pencil, at lower left: J.C. Orozco

Provenance
?-1945
Mrs. Malcom McBride, Cleveland, OH, given to the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
1945-
Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
Citations
J.C. Orozco Memorial Exhibition. Exh. Cat. Boston: Institute of Contemporary Art, 1953. Mentioned: no. 144
Francis, Henry S. "'The Wounded Soldier' by Orozco." Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 42, no. 4 (April 1955): 61-63. Mentioned: p. 63 www.jstor.org
Exhibition history

José Clemente Orozco Memorial Exhibition. Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (November 11 - December 13, 1953).

A Graphic Revolution: Prints and Drawings in Latin America. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (March 14-August 2, 2020).

Source URL: https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1945.253