Duke University Press Orozco's American Epic: Myth, History, and the Melancholy of Race

Between 1932 and 1934, José Clemente Orozco painted the twenty-four-panel mural cycle entitled The Epic of American Civilization in Dartmouth College's Baker-Berry Library. An artifact of Orozco's migration from Mexico to the United States, the Epic represents a turning point in his career, standing as the only fresco in which he explores both US-American and Mexican narratives of national history, progress, and identity. While his title invokes the heroic epic form, the mural indicts history as complicit in colonial violence. It questions the claims of Manifest Destiny in the United States and the Mexican desire to mend the wounds of conquest in pursuit of a postcolonial national project. In Orozco's American Epic Mary K. Coffey places Orozco in the context of his contemporaries, such as Diego Rivera and David Alfaro Siqueiros, and demonstrates the Epic's power as a melancholic critique of official indigenism, industrial progress, and Marxist messianism. In the process, Coffey finds within Orozco's work a call for justice that resonates with contemporary debates about race, immigration, borders, and nationality. Review "A meaningful contribution to a growing body of literature on the theme of Mexican muralism on both sides of the border.... Coffey's sophisticated analysis and vivid description of Orozco's mural combine a variety of methodologies that make this book timely, complex, and engaging."--Maya Jiménez "Panorama" (5/1/2021 12:00:00 AM)"Four-and-a-half decades later, Mary K. Coffey is now the favorite Professor at Dartmouth College that I never had. Her richly informed and nuanced Orozco's American Epic on some of this hemisphere's greatest murals deepens my understanding and affection for the most memorable body of imagery encountered in four unhappy years of my life. ¡Bravo, Maestra!"--Mike Mosher "Leonardo Reviews" (6/1/2021 12:00:00 AM)"If [Coffey's] reflections on the notion of prophecy re-open a closed chapter in Mexican historiography, her analysis of the Orozco mural from the standpoint of mass culture will put art historians on the edge of their seats. Without resorting to analogies of 'high and low' . . . she illuminates a field of exchanges and transformations . . . that partakes of the extraordinary formal freedom the painter was gaining through his work." (translated from Spanish)--Renato González Mello "Nexos" (11/1/2020 12:00:00 AM)"An engaging read. . . . Coffey's discussion of these muralists correctly places the book in conversation with Mexican muralist studies more broadly."--Gregory R. Mesa "Dartmouth Review" (2/6/2021 12:00:00 AM)"Critiquing melancholy through the lenses of performance and critical race studies, decoloniality, and transnationalism, Coffey offers a nuanced interpretation of Orozco's political art. She presents Orozco's Epic as a compelling counternarrative that reappraises debates about identity, immigration, and nationalism. Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty; professionals."--L. Estevez "Choice" (9/1/2020 12:00:00 AM)"Orozco's American Epic is original in its intent, theoretically sophisticated, and clearly elaborated. Mary K. Coffey does not settle for easy interpretations of Orozco's mural but rather dwells purposively on the difficult questions it raises. An outstanding book."--Claire F. Fox, author of "Making Art Panamerican: Cultural Policy and the Cold War""Coffey's scholarship is singular in its depth of critical analysis of Orozco's Epic and, for this reason, will likely be considered among the foremost explorations of the work. . . . This book is highly recommended for every academic library collection."--Colleen Farry "ARLIS/NA" (7/1/2020 12:00:00 AM)"This is a spectacular piece of scholarship. Any study of Mexican mural painting in the context of Mexico is challenging enough, but adding the extra level of context as a work on US soil would defeat a less ambitious and less courageous scholar than Mary K.