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José Clemente Orozco, George Charles Miller, Contemporary Print Group

Negroes

1933

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José Clemente Orozco, George Charles Miller, Contemporary Print Group

Negroes

1933

Physical Qualities Crayon lithograph with scraping, Sheet: 404 x 293 mm. (15 7/8 x 11 9/16 in.) Image: 324 x 227 mm. (12 3/4 x 8 15/16 in.)
Credit Line Print Fund
Object Number 1935.11.5
Orozco was one of the only non-American artists asked to create a print for "The American Scene, No. 1", the first of two portfolios, with six lithographs apiece, that were published by the short-lived Contemporary Print Group in New York. In these portfolios, the contributing artists addressed various social and political issues as well as economic hardships facing Depression-era America. Jacob Burck’s image shows the arrest of a protester brandishing a sign with the labor slogan “work or bread.” (In this context “bread” refers to easy living.) Reginald Marsh’s composition calls attention to down-on-their-luck men sitting on the base of the George Washington equestrian monument in Manhattan’s Union Square. George Grosz offers a biting lithograph of a World War I veteran with an amputated leg begging on the streets. Orozco created a powerful and wrenching condemnation of lynching through his horrific scene of mutilated bodies hanging from trees and burning in flames. The following year impressions of "The Lynching" were shown in two exhibitions in New York: "An Art Commentary on Lynching" (presented by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) and "The Struggle for Negro Rights" (presented by a coalition of left-wing organizations).

Publication References

Hilton, Ronald, ed. "Handbook of Hispanic Source Materials and Research Organizations in the United States." Toronto, Canada: The University of Toronto Press, 1942, p. 186.
Bought from Contingent Print Fund
Crossing Borders: Mexican Modernist Prints

Signed: 1

Inscribed: Below image, at right, in graphite; "J. C. Orozco"

Markings: WM: FRANCE

Artist

José Clemente Orozco

Mexican, 1883-1949
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Printer

George Charles Miller

American, 1894-1965
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Publisher

Contemporary Print Group

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