[Jose Clemente Orozco]

Doris Ulmann, 1925–1930

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Artist: Doris Ulmann (American, 1882–1934)
Medium: Platinum print
Size: Image: 20.3 × 15.6 cm (8 × 6 1/8 in.)
Culture: American
Museum: J. Paul Getty Museum
Rights: CC0 — no rights reserved

José Clemente Orozco (1883-1949), the Mexican painter and muralist, worked in the United States between 1927 and 1934, creating murals in New York, California, and New Hampshire. His work was promoted by Alma Reed, who established the Delphic Studios in New York and in 1929 gave Doris Ulmann her first solo exhibition. Orozco would have a show in Reed's gallery the next year; in 1929 he was exhibiting at the Downtown Gallery and the Art Students League.

The populist intent of his murals no doubt drew Ulmann to this intense artist, who she probably met through Reed or other art world connections. Whatever the attraction, the two became close enough that the photographer not only made several portraits of him but also gave a cocktail party at her apartment for his forty-sixth birthday.

Orozco may have sat for her camera at about this time, posing in his studio or at a gallery before what appears to be one of his own paintings or mural studies. While in the United States, he would also sit for the photographers Edward Weston (1886-1958) and Ansel Adams (1902-1984) (see 86.XM.624.1 and 84.XP.904.9). In those portraits the painter stares determinedly into the distance from behind the thick round glasses he normally wore. Ulmann pictures him without his glasses, capturing his penetrating gaze (see also 89.XM.89.97).

Text: J. Paul Getty Trust, CC BY 4.0.