Mexican Soldiers

José Clemente Orozco was a painter, engraver and cartoonist who started his artistic career almost by accident. Every afternoon, as he came back from school, he would watch artist José Guadalupe Posada work at a printing house on his way home. His first artworks were lithographs portraying indigenous life. He also created topographic maps, cartoons and watercolors of the slums of Mexico City commissioned by some periodicals. In 1922, along with David Alfaro Siqueiros and Diego Rivera, he joined the Sindicato de Pintores y Escultores, and together they formed a coterie of muralists, which gave birth to the identity of the discipline in Mexico and the image of the revolution. After a short period in New York, where he painted several murals, Orozco returned to Mexico and lived there until he died in 1949. Considered the least politically oriented mural artist, all his work bears the imprint on humanity and living conditions. His expressive style highlights the drama in many of his images, and his capacity of muralist is self-evident, even in this small-scale gouache from 1930. Even when painted on paper and in small dimensions, the modern massiveness of his figures enhances the heroic type of these Mexican soldiers.