Jose Clemente Orozco was one of Los Tres Grandes, the three Mexican muralists who revolutionized their nation’s art production during the early 20th century. Edward Weston, a friend of Ansel Adams, had met and befriended Orozco while traveling in Mexico, and he introduced him to Adams in New York. Here, the artist is a portrait of rigid resilience. The camera focuses on his furrowed brow, highlighted by the rim of his glasses. Orozco’s life was one defined by the determined expression shown here: he lost his left hand at the age of 21, and then went on to create colossal murals, an artistic form requiring immense physical labor. Here his wound does not matter. One cannot see his missing arm, only his fierce personality, his glasses reflecting the New York cityscape, allowing us to see as the visions of an artist.

David Kuhio Ahia, PO ’18
Getty Multicultural Undergraduate Intern


Between 1978 and his death in 1984, Ansel Adams created a special inventory of fine photographic prints of his most important and favorite images. Adams created these prints in order to make his work more available to a wide range of institutions for public display and educational purposes as part of their permanent collections. These prints were sold in sets to individuals, corporations, and institutions suject to the written agreement that each set would not be sold on the open market, bu rather would be donated to institutions for public display and educational purposes. These sets of fine prints became known as the Ansel Adams Museum Sets.

Some of the institutions that have received gifts of Museum Set prints include The National Gallery of Art, the Wilderness Society, the Stanford art Museum, the de Young Museum, the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, Cornell University, and Princeton University.

Scripps College is very pleased to be the recipient of an Ansel Adams Museum Set through the generosity of the Virginia Adams Charitable Trust, created by Adams's wife, Virginia Best Adams. This gift to the Scripps College collection was made directly by the Virginia Adams Charitable Trust.

The copyright to this work and all works in the Ansel Adams Museum Set is held by the Virginia Adams Charitable Trust.

This work bears the signature of the artist in pencil at the lower right, directly beneath the photo.

silver gelatin print

This object has the following keywords:

• Artists and Craftsmen
• Portraits

This object is a member of the following portfolios: