Study for Anglo-America (Panel 13) for The Epic of American Civilization
José Clemente Orozco, Mexican, 1883 - 1949
about 1930-1934
Graphite on tracing paper
Overall: 18 3/4 × 16 3/4 in. (47.6 × 42.5 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
© 2018 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / SOMAAP, Mexico City
D.988.52.5
Geography
Place Made: Mexico, North America
Period
20th century
Object Name
Drawing
Research Area
Drawing
Not on view
Inscriptions
Inscribed, on reverse, lower right: 61.1780.6, 86; inscribed, on reverse, lower left: 1397
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. Early studies for the schoolteacher’s face resemble George Washington, one of the most recognizable and reproduced historical figures of all time. In the mural’s final version, Orozco portrayed the stern-faced schoolteacher as an agent of conformity and control surrounded by expressionless school children. By merging George Washington with the schoolteacher, Orozco highlighted 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
SART 15, Drawing I, Colleen Randall, Fall 2013
SART 20, SART 71, Drawing II, Drawing III, Colleen Randall, Fall 2013
SART 15, Drawing I, Colleen Randall, Spring 2015
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, August 17-November 12, 2023.
Provenance
Artist; by descent to the Orozco Family, about 1949; purchased by the present collection, 1988.
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