José Clemente Orozco Flores was born in Ciudad Guzmán, Jalisco, on November 23, 1883, and died in Mexico City on September 7, 1949.
Orozco was a Mexican caricaturist, muralist and lithographer. Graduated from the National School of Agriculture, he also studied mathematics and architectural drawing.
One of Mexico’s most famous artists and muralists, José Clemente Orozco, lost his left hand in 1904 in an accident with firecrackers, and his perceived emotional darkness is imbued in 57 murals — all painted within two years using only his right hand — that adorn the vaulted ceiling and walls of Cabanas museum at the Plaza Tapatía in Guadalajara.
Orozco epitomizes the notion of the tortured artist. Some of his works were destroyed in the U.S. in the early 1900s because he was seen to be immoral.
Jose Clemente struggled for artistic recognition early on, but his murals in Guadalajara, titled Man of Fire, are referred to as the Sistine Chapel of the Americas. The murals are massive, spectacularly avant garde and were among those that influenced American painter Jackson Pollock.
Source.- El Colegio Nacional
