Chicano art movement

movement late 1960s-1970s United States Mexico

The Chicano art movement grew out of the Chicano civil rights movement (El Movimiento) of the late 1960s and 1970s, when Mexican-American artists in the Southwest made art explicitly for their communities. Murals transformed barrio walls in Los Angeles and San Diego's Chicano Park; community print shops and centers such as Self Help Graphics & Art spread screenprints, posters and papel picado. The imagery drew on Aztec and Maya heritage, Catholic iconography, lowrider culture, the farmworkers' struggle and everyday barrio life, joining social protest to a proud, reinvented cultural identity. Groups such as ASCO used performance and photography to confront the art world's exclusion of Chicano artists. Judith Baca's monumental mural projects brought community history to civic scale, and the movement permanently widened the audience and subject of American art.

An example of Herminia Albarrán Romero’s masterful papel picado (Mexican paper cutting).
An example of Herminia Albarrán Romero’s masterful papel picado (Mexican paper cutting).Public domain (credit: Herminia Albarrán Romero) · source

Defining characteristics

  • Large community murals painted on barrio walls and public buildings
  • Indigenous (Aztec and Maya) motifs alongside Catholic imagery and lowrider culture
  • Bold, saturated color and graphic, poster-like design
  • Political subject matter: civil rights, farmworkers, police violence, cultural pride
  • Community production: print shops, cultural centers, collaborative workshops

Key figures

  • Judith F. Baca (b. 1946) — Muralist and organizer of the Great Wall of Los Angeles
  • Carlos Almaraz (1941-1989) — Painter-muralist of barrio life and dreamlike car imagery
  • Gilbert Luján (1940-2011) — Painter-sculptor of lowrider-inflected Chicano iconography
  • Gronk (b. 1954) — ASCO painter and performance artist

Example works

Sources

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