JOSÉ CLEMENTE OROZCO (1883 - 1949) Man in Chains (Prometheus).
Oil on masonite, circa 1930. 640x405 mm; 25¼x16 inches. Signed lower right.
Provenance Private collection, Los Angeles, circa 1950 - 2010. Private collection, California, 2010. [with] Throckmorton Fine Art, New York (label and certificate).
Exhibited "Anatomy of a Fresco: Drawings of José Clemente Orozco from the Wornick Collection," The Hispanic Museum and Library, New York, September 15 - November 19, 2023.
In the summer of 1930, Orozco unveiled his fresco mural Prometheus at Pomona College, Claremont, California. This was the first of three murals Orozco completed in the United States, and established an expressionistic style and distinctive color scheme which he would carry into his later works. Orozco's Prometheus was also the first mural painted in the United States by one of Los Tres Grandes Mexican muralists, including Diego Rivera and David Alfaro Siqueiros.
Orozco arrived in the United States in 1927 and in March 1930 was commissioned by Pomona College in part due to the efforts of José Pijoán, a professor of Spanish civilization there and Sumner Spaulding, architect of the recently dedicated Frary Hall.
The theme of Prometheus bringing the fire of knowledge to humankind was chosen, both because it was fitting for a college hall, and because Orozco had his own internalized interpretation of the story: personal artistic sacrifice to benefit the masses. Orozco clearly identified with his mythical subject, placing great emphasis on Prometheus' large hands in both the mural and the present painting. Orozco's oeuvre is replete with prominent hands, perhaps owing to Orozco having had his own left hand amputated after an accident involving fireworks as a young man. Orozco would have been well acquainted with the Prometheus myth having studied classical casts as a young artist and from his association with Alma Reed and Eva Sikelianos in New York, and their 1929 intention of staging Prometheus Bound.
In the Pomona College mural, Orozco highlighted two subjects of the painting of great importance: the colossal Titan Prometheus reaching for the fire and the dynamic crowd. Some in the crowd are delighted and embrace; others scorn Prometheus' gift, reflecting the mixed reception of Orozco's art. Though there was conservative opposition to Orozco's mural, Orozco was also highly praised. By May 1930, he had already been commissioned to paint murals at the New School for Social Research in New York. The Pomona College mural, which predated Diego Rivera's arrival in San Francisco, heralded in a new era in mural painting. According to David W. Scott in "Orozco's Prometheus," appearing in College Art Journal in Autumn 1957, "Prometheus stands as a masterful introduction to what was to become the most astonishing cycle of cosmic myths created by a modern artist."
