Untitled
ClassificationsPaintings-oils
Artist
Mr. Emigdio Vasquez
(American, 1939 - 2014)
Date1992
Made AtCalifornia, United States, North America
MediumOil on canvas
Dimensions96 × 48 in. (243.8 × 121.9 cm)
Credit LineGift of Mr. and Mrs. Robert and Beverly Barnes
Object number2001.46.1
DescriptionThis untitled oil painting from 1992 was made by painter Emigdio Vasquez, the “Godfather of Chicano Artists,” a prolific muralist, principally known for large-scale murals at the Cesar Chavez Business and Computer Center at Santa Ana College and the Orange County Transportation Center. Here the artist’s untitled mural, is a tribute to the hard-working Mexican-American workforce and its importance to California’s economy, depicting the Latino working class that helped make the state a land of opportunity. Vasquez was included in the important exhibition Chicano Art: Resistance and Affirmation at UCLA in 1990. Emigdio Vasquez was born in 1939 in Jerome, Arizona, a mining town which was already drying up by the end of the Great Depression. At the age of two his family moved to Orange, California. In school he took an interest in art and began creating his own comics. He brought this passion into studying at Santa Ana College and later California State University, Fullerton. Throughout the middle of the century, he built up his acclaim with exhibitions and by winning commissions for painting public murals. He taught at Santa Ana College throughout his career and earned his title of “Godfather” by founding the Orange County Latino Artists Network (or OCLAN), the first organization dedicated to Latino art in the county.On View
On viewCollections
