One feels oneself almost walking in the footsteps of the late Emilio Amero (1901-1976) in an exhibition of his prints, photographs and drawings at the Jacobson House Native Art Center, 609 Chautauqua, in Norman.

A Mexican-born art professor at the University of Oklahoma from 1946 to 1966, the small show of his works welcomes the patron with an exquisite graphite drawing of “Two Feet” on a dark background reduced to flat abstract shapes.

Almost equally evocative are two 1950 black-and-white lithographs of a woman with an empty-socketed, masklike face, playing the “Harmonica Blues,” and of a second woman holding a “Sea Shell” to her ear.

Wide-eyed, rather than empty-socketed, is the subject of “The Gesture,” a 1948 color lithograph of a woman with a scroll-like yellow headdress, raising one hand to her cheek in front of a brick wall.

Closer to the heroic murals and paintings of Diego Rivera, a colleague of Amero’s in the Mexican Modern movement, are Amero’s color lithographs of a “Flower Vender” and of two women doing their “Ablutions.”

Holding a pole at an angle with his chin on his other hand, Amero’s slightly bored looking flower vender has a wicker basket on his back, held in place by a band around his forehead.

A nude woman pores water from a vessel over the long hair of another woman in Amero’s “Ablutions”--a work represented by a preliminary sketch and stencils as well as the lithograph.

An even more direct connection with the Mexican mural movement is found in a color photograph of the still existing mural Amero did of Abraham Lincoln for OU’s Kaufman Hall.

In a 1947 black-and-white lithograph, a nude, kneeling, wide-eyed woman named “Naomi” is posed in front of miniature background images of her, or another woman, dancing and embracing.

Photographs in the show include two black-and-white self-portraits, one with black hat and one without, plus pictures of Amero “at his easel” and instructing a student working on a print.

Adding an extra dimension to the show are two late 1940s prints by the same student, Neal Putnam, and several vivid woodblocks by contemporary Navajo artist Marwin Begaye, an OU instructor in printmaking.

The exhibit is being offered in conjunction with the release of a book on Amero by Dr. Andrew L. Phelan, a painter, educator and emeritus director of the OU School of Art.

Phelan will give the second part of a lecture on Amero during a closing reception from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. Nov. 12.

The show was guest curated by Russ Tall Chief, director of arts and exhibits for the American Indian Cultural Center, being built in Oklahoma City.

It is also being supported by the showing of an Amero film, followed by a lithography workshop Begaye will conduct, beginning at 1:30 p.m. Oct. 7 at the OU art school.

Assisted by the Oklahoma Arts Council, the exhibit is highly recommended during its run through Nov. 12 at the Jacobson House.

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