Marching Women

Orozco explored many of the same motifs in paintings and works on paper as he did in large-scale murals. Marching Women relates to panels from Orozco’s mural cycle for the courtyard at the National Preparatory School in Mexico City, executed between 1923 and 1926. The lithograph is thematically linked to decorations on the courtyard’s third floor, which present somber scenes of leave-taking and preparation for battle. The stark form of the house reappears at the center of Marching Women, as a group of soldiers—rifles slung over their shoulders and sombrero-sporting heads bowed in resignation—departs from their loved ones. A foil to the women on the left of the composition, two soldaderas (female companions and fighters) join the revolutionary cause.