Work Started on Orozco Book

WANTED—Correspondence and conversations with Dartmouth men, Classes '32 through '38, about Jose Clemente Orozco and the Baker Library murals. Impressions, anecdotes, documents needed for book on Orozcoat Dartmouth. Contact Prof. Churchill P. Lathrop, Art Department.

The foregoing want-ad has never been placed anywhere but here, of course, but it may serve to tell in a hurry what Professor Lathrop is up to.

He recently returned from a research trip in Mexico where he interviewed the artist's widow and children and numerous art experts. He also viewed Orozco's other works in his native country to try to relate these efforts to the epic work in Baker that the artist completed in 1934.

Professor Lathrop is in a uniquely strong position to discuss Orozco's years at Dartmouth and compare his other work. When he was a young instructor he was one of the Art Department faculty members who urged that the Mexican muralist be brought to Hanover to demonstrate the true fresco technique. Professor Lathrop was then teaching courses in medieval and Renaissance art in which frescoes played a significant role. There were few examples of the technique in this country, but it had been revived in Mexico in the 1920's by a group of artists. They used it extensively in public buildings to illustrate the goals of the revolution to the peasants. The department chose Orozco although they had an opportunity to get the more famous Diego Rivera.

The rest is history—literally. Orozco found in the Baker Library reserve room the wall space and inspiration for a giant mural he had conceived, The Epic ofAmerican Civilization. During the two years he spent teaching-by-doing, Orozco was observed by thousands of Dartmouth men and visitors. It is this potentially rich vein of reminiscence that Professor Lathrop hopes to tap.

Professor Lathrop's trip to Mexico provided him with a better perspective on the artist's work, he said. Two murals especially caught his eye. The first in the National Preparatory School in Mexico City was painted in the 1920's and was quite didactic in keeping with the efforts of the muralists of the period to present simple, historical statements. His later work, like that in the Hospicio Cabanas in Guadalahara, Jalisco, showed deeper awareness and more emotion.

Professor Lathrop visiting the Pyramidof the Sun at Teotihuacan near MexicoCity. Orozco included the pyramid ina panel of his Baker Library frescoes.