Resources for further study and action
Call to Revolution and Table of Universal Brotherhood (Table of Universal Brotherhood) by José Clemente Orozco
“Orozco: Man of Fire is a brilliant and deeply moving film. The words from and about Orozco are well chosen and well paced. The use of old film cuts gives historical context and life. The visual effects are imaginative, somewhat surreal, and poetic. The music amplifies meaning and does not distract. I was spellbound: Orozco came alive.”
TO START
Visit the website of the PBS series American Masters, the public television broadcaster of Orozco: Man of Fire.
Download a PDF version of the film’s discussion guide, and other educational resources.
OROZCO AND HIS ART
Photographer Bob Schalkwijk has the world’s most comprehensive photo archive of Mexican murals, including all of Orozco’s murals in Mexico.
https://hoodmuseum.dartmouth.edu/explore/collection/featured-collections/orozcos-epic
Dartmouth College provides information about Orozco’s Epic of American Civilization mural cycle (1932-34) in the Baker Library’s Orozco Room, a designated national historic landmark. The site includes a 3-D digital tour of the mural, a downloadable brochure, and a video presentation on the murals’ relevance today.
http://www.getty.edu/artsednet/resources/Murals
The Getty Research Center Arts has on-line information about Orozco’s art and other Mexican murals.
The Pomona College website source for information about Prometheus, Orozco’s first mural in the United States.
MURAL PAINTING IN THE AMERICAS AND CHICANO/LATINO ART
New Deal/WPA Art Project is a good “clearinghouse” site of links to information about New Deal Murals.
http://members.aol.com/FVOC/
An archive of art reviews by Francis V. O’Connor Ph.D., including information about the 1930s WPA Federal Art Project.
UC Santa Barbara’s California Ethnic and Multicultural Archives features Calisphere, an online collection of Latino/Chicano art.
MURAL PAINTING AND ARTS EDUCATION
The Chicago Public Art Group creates public artwork, trains artists in mural painting, and teaches children creative skills. View their comprehensive guide to the mural-making process.
The Social and Public Art Resource Center is a Los Angeles community arts organization that creates public art projects, maintains a digital mural lab and archives and provides educational programs.
Precita Eyes Muralists is a San Francisco community arts organization that creates mural projects and offers mural painting and art classes to children, youth and adults.
The Kennedy Center provides educational materials that meet the National Standards For Arts Education, including the lesson plan, Five Artists of the Mexican Revolution.
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Becker, Heather. Art for the People: The Rediscovery and Preservation of Progressive and WPA-Era Murals in the Chicago Public Schools, 1904-1943. Chronicle Books, San Francisco, 2002
Brenner, Anita. The Wind that Swept Mexico: The History of the Mexican Revolution 1910-1942. University of Texas Press, Austin, 1985
Chalfant, Henry, and Jim Prigoff. Walls of Heritage, Walls of Pride: The History of African American Murals in the United States. Pomegranate Press, Beverly Hills, 2000
Coffey, Mary K. Orozco’s American Epic: Myth, History, and the Melancholy of Race. Duke University Press, Durham 2020
Charlot, Jean. An Artist on Art, Collected Essays of Jean Charlot. The University Press of Hawaii, 1972
Charlot, Jean. The Mexican Mural Renaissance. Hacker Art Books, New York, 1962
Cockroft, Eva Sperling and Holly Barnet-Sanchez. Signs from the Heart: California Chicano Murals. SPARC/University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, 1990
Cockroft, Eva, John Weber and Jim Cockroft, Toward a People’s Art, The Contemporary Mural Movement. E.P. Dutton And Co., New York, 1977
Delpar, Helen. The Enormous Vogue of Things Mexican. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa and London, 1992
Frank, Patrick. Posada’s Broadsheets-Mexican Popular Imagery 1890-1910. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, 1998
Glusker, Susannah Joel. Anita Brenner-A Mind of Her Own. University of Texas Press, Austin, 1998
Haskell, Barbara et al. Vida Americana: Mexican Muralists Remake American Art, 1925-1945. Yale University Press, New Haven, Connecticut, 2020.
Helm, MacKinley. Man of Fire: J.C. Orozco, an interpretive memoir. Greenwood Press, Westport, 1971
Helm, MacKinley. Mexican Painters. Dover Publications, New York, 1989
Harth, Marjorie, editor. José Clemente Orozco: Prometheus. Pomona College Museum of Art, Claremont, 2001
Hemingway, Andrew. American Artists and the Communist Movement, 1926-1956. Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2002
Hood Museum of Art, Renato González Mello and Diane Miliotes, editors. José Clemente Orozco in the United States, 1927-1934. WW Norton & Co, New York/London, 2002
Hurlburt, Laurance P. The Mexican Muralists in the United States. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, 1989
Jacoby, Annice. Street Art San Francisco: Mission Muralismo. Abrams, New York, 2009
LeFalle-Collins, Lizetta and Goldman, Shifra M. In the Spirit of Resistance: African-American Modernists and the Mexican Muralist School. American Federation of Arts, New York, 1996
Oles, James. South of the Border: Mexico in the American Imagination 1914-1947. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington and London, 1993
Orozco, José Clemente. The Artist in New York, Letters to Jean Charlot and Unpublished Writings (1925-1929). University of Texas Press, Austin, 1974
Orozco, José Clemente. An Autobiography. Dover Publications, New York, 2001
Orozco Valladares, Clemente. José Clemente Orozco: Graphic Work, University of Texas Press, Austin 2004
Paz, Octavio. Essays on Mexican Art. Harcourt Brace, New York, 1987
Reed, Alma. Orozco. Oxford University Press, New York, 1956
Reed, Alma. The Mexican Muralists. Crown Publishers, New York, 1960
Rochfort, Desmond. Mexican Muralists. Chronicle Books, San Francisco, 1998
Stein, Philip. Siqueiros, His Life and Works. International Publishers, New York, 1994