As a young student, José Clemente Orozco was enchanted by the work of Mexican artist José Guadalupe Posada. His work as an illustrator stirred Orozco’s imagination and “impelled [him] to cover paper with [his] first little figures.”
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- [Narrator] From his earliest years, Clemente's secret ambition is painting.
At night, he studies at the renowned San Carlos Academy, drawing by rote and copying the European masters.
Down the street is the print shop of the most famous illustrator of the era, José Guadalupe Posada.
- [Orozco] On my way to school and back, I would stop and spend a few enchanted minutes to watch him.
Sometimes I even ventured to enter the shop and snatch up a bit of shavings that fell from the metal plate as a master's graver passed over it.
This set my imagination in motion and impelled me to cover paper with my first little figures.
This was my awakening to the existence of the art of painting.
- [Narrator] The San Carlos Academy and Posada's vivid art of the streets are the two formative influences of Clemente's youth, but his parents want him to pursue a respectable profession.
He tries agricultural engineering, but contracts rheumatic fever and returns home with a heart condition.
He then studies architecture, but leaves school when his father dies of typhus.
