José Clemente Orozco was a caricaturist, printmaker, painter, and muralist. Born in Ciudad Guzmán, Orozco became an integral part of the Mexican Muralism Movement in the 1920s. The movement, which began after the Mexican Revolution, included public murals commissioned by the government to capture the country’s history.

Orozco, along with Diego Rivera and David Alfaro Siqueiros—the “Big Three”—created large-scale public works with political and mythological themes. Orozco’s art chronicled and critiqued social change in both Mexico and the United States.

In the 1930s, Pomona College in California commissioned Orozco to create Prometheus. It is considered the first modern fresco mural painted in the US by a Mexican artist. It is also the first large-scale work in the US by a member of the Big Three. Orozco’s political murals in the US were both intensely critiqued and widely praised.