| The Passion of Sacco and Vanzetti | |
|---|---|
 Series painting in the Whitney Museum | |
| Artist | Ben Shahn |
| Year | 1931–1932 |
| Medium | Gouache |
| Movement | Social realism |
| Subject | Sacco and Vanzetti |
The Passion of Sacco and Vanzetti is a 1932 painting series by Ben Shahn consisting of 32 gouache paintings of Sacco and Vanzetti .
Artist Ben Shahn had always wanted to be alive during a time of greatness, such as the crucifixion of Christ. [1] Seeing the public reaction to and honoring of Sacco and Vanzetti's lives, Shahn came to see the event as a "crucifixion" of his own time. He participated in a picket against the execution and grew more convinced of their innocence over time. [2]
Shahn created 23 gouache paintings between 1931 and 1932 in The Passion of Sacco and Vanzetti. They were first exhibited at Downtown Gallery in April 1932. [1]
During the Great Depression, Shahn submitted a mural sketch in 1932 to The Museum of Modern Art based on his Sacco and Vanzetti series, which the museum purported to not like. They made an offer to purchase the painting if he would withdraw his application. It was later reproduced in the catalog and brought on national tour but only sold years later, in 1949, to the Whitney Museum of American Art's permanent collection. [2]
Shahn resuscitated the mural concept when Syracuse University invited him to create a mural panel series in 1965, which displays on the external wall of the university's law school. French artist Gabriel Loire produced the mosaic. The university press published an art book of the murals with reproductions several years later. [3]
José Clemente Orozco was a Mexican caricaturist and painter, who specialized in political murals that established the Mexican Mural Renaissance together with murals by Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, and others. Orozco was the most complex of the Mexican muralists, fond of the theme of human suffering, but less realistic and more fascinated by machines than Rivera. Mostly influenced by Symbolism, he was also a genre painter and lithographer. Between 1922 and 1948, Orozco painted murals in Mexico City, Orizaba, Claremont, California, New York City, Hanover, New Hampshire, Guadalajara, Jalisco, and Jiquilpan, Michoacán. His drawings and paintings are exhibited by the Carrillo Gil Museum in Mexico City, and the Orozco Workshop-Museum in Guadalajara. Orozco was known for being a politically committed artist, and he promoted the political causes of peasants and workers.
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