Negroes, from the series The American Scene No. 1
Artist/Maker
José Clemente Orozco
(Mexican, 1883–1949)
Date1933
MediumLithograph
DimensionsImage: 12 3/4 × 9 in. (32.4 × 22.9 cm)
Sheet: 15 15/16 × 11 3/8 in. (40.5 × 28.9 cm)
Sheet: 15 15/16 × 11 3/8 in. (40.5 × 28.9 cm)
Credit LineMuseum Purchase
Editionedition of 150
PortfolioThe American Scene No. 1
Object number1936.9
Status
Not on viewJosé Clemente Orozco originally created Negroes to be shown at two competing 1935 exhibitions (sponsored by the NAACP and the Communist Party-affiliated John Reed Club) organized to provide an artistic commentary on the practice of lynching. He was inspired by a famous 1930 photograph of the charred body of George Hughes, a Texan agricultural laborer, lynched by a white mob after being falsely accused of rape and murder. The contorted pose of the figure in the foreground mirrors that of Hughes in the photograph, originally published in the Labor Defender. Diego Rivera declined the NAACP's request for a submission, dissuaded by the organization's more centrist politics. Ultimately, Orozco was one of only five artists whose work appeared in both exhibitions.
Exhibition History
Representing the Revolution: Works on Paper by Jose Clemente Orozco, Diego Rivera and David Alfaro Siquieros
- Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, OH (February 16, 1999 - March 30, 1999 )
The Mexican Revolution in Prints and Paintings
- Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, OH (September 9, 2008 - December 23, 2008 )
Latin American and Latino Art at the Allen
- Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, OH (September 2, 2014 - June 28, 2015 )
Collections
- Modern & Contemporary
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1933, published 1935
1934, published 1936