Men of Fire: José Clemente Orozco and Jackson Pollock

The purpose of both the exhibition and the catalogue is to trace the profound contribution Orozco made to Pollock’s artistic vision. From his first experience of the Mexican’s mural art, the 1930 Prometheus fresco at Pomona College in Claremont, California, through his return to figurative imagery in 1951, Pollock gravitated to Orozco’s powerful expressionistic forms, emotional intensity, and humanistic themes. The recurring image of fire, as a symbol of creative and destructive energy, is common to both artists. It can be argued that even the most abstract phase of Pollock’s work, when there is no apparent stylistic debt to Orozco, reflects the monumentality and dynamism of the latter’s murals.

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KünstlerInnen: José Clemente Orozco , Jackson Pollock