Frank Romero

Last updated
Frank Romero
Born (1941-07-11) July 11, 1941 (age 82) [1] [2]
Boyle Heights, Los Angeles, California, United States
Education Otis College of Art and Design, California State University, Los Angeles
Known forpainting
Movement Chicano art movement
Spouse(s)Diane Marie Humphrey, Nancy Wyle, Sharon Lear Dabney
Children Sonia Romero

Frank Edward Romero (born July 11, 1941) is an American artist considered to be a pioneer in the Chicano art movement. [3] [4] [5] Romero's paintings and mural works explore Chicano and Los Angeles iconography, often featuring palm trees and bright colors.

Contents

Biography

Death of Ruben Salazar (1986) at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in 2022 Death of Ruben Salazar, 1986, Frank Romero at SAAM 2022.jpeg
Death of Rubén Salazar (1986) at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in 2022

Frank Romero was born July 11, 1941, in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. [6] [3] [7] He was the oldest of three children in a middle class family, his parents were Delia Jurado and Edwardo (or Edward) Romero. [4] Romero is of Spanish and Mexican heritage. [8] Growing up they spoke English at home and Romero learned to speak Spanish later in life. [8]

He attended the summer program at Otis College of Art and Design and in the 1950s he enrolled in California State University, Los Angeles (Cal State LA) where he befriended Carlos Almaraz. [3] Romero studied with Rico Lebrun and Herbert Jepson. [3] In the 1960s, he worked in graphic design for the Charles and Ray Eames studio and later for A&M Records. [3] In 1968–1969, Romero lived in New York City with Carlos Almaraz. [8]

In the 1970s, Romero alongside Almaraz, Roberto de la Rocha and Gilbert Lujan formed the art collective Los Four. [3] In 1974, Los Four were the first Chicano artist to be shown at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). [3]

His best known painting is Death of Ruben Salazar (1986), which was one of his police brutality series. [9]

Personal life

Romero's first marriage was in 1969 to Diane Marie Humphrey in New York City. [4] [10]

In 1980, Romero married Nancy Wyle in Los Angeles, California. [11] Nancy's parents were artist Edith R. Wyle and Frank S. Wyle, the co-founders of the Craft and Folk Art Museum in Los Angeles. [12] Together they had daughter, Sonia Romero. [12]

Frank Romero is currently married to artist Sharon Lear Dabney.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carlos Almaraz</span> Mexican-American painter (1941–1989)

Carlos D. Almaraz was a Mexican-American artist and a pioneer of the Chicano art movement. He was one of the founder of the Centro de Arte Público (1977–1979), a Chicano/Chicana arts organization in Highland Park, Los Angeles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gronk (artist)</span> American painter

Gronk, born Glugio Nicandro, is a Chicano painter, printmaker, and performance artist. His work is collected by museums around the country including the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Los Four</span> Artist collective in Los Angeles

Los Four was a Chicano artist collective active based in Los Angeles, California. The group was instrumental in bringing the Chicano art movement to the attention of the mainstream art world.

Elsa Flores is a well known Chicana street artist. Her mother's name was Maria Valenzuela and she was originally from a small village called San Javier located in Sinaloa, Mexico. She is one of the best known members of the Chicano street art movement.

Gilbert "Magu" Luján was a well known and influential Chicano sculptor, muralist and painter. He founded the famous Chicano collective Los Four that consisted of artists Carlos Almaraz, Beto de la Rocha, Frank Romero and himself. In 1974, Judithe Hernández became the "fifth" and only female member of Los Four.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert de la Rocha</span> American artist, father of Rage Against the Machine singer Zack de la Rocha

Roberto Isaac "Beto" de la Rocha is an American painter, graphic artist, and muralist. He was part of the Chicano art collective Los Four for a few years. De la Rocha was also influential in re-establishing the traditional Mexican celebration of the Day of the Dead in Los Angeles. He is the father of Rage Against the Machine vocalist and lyricist Zack de la Rocha.

Walter "Chico" Hopps was an American museum director, gallerist, and curator of contemporary art. Hopps helped bring Los Angeles post-war artists to prominence during the 1960s, and later went on to redefine practices of curatorial installation internationally. He is known for contributing decisively to “the emergence of the museum as a place to show new art.”

RIVERA & RIVERA is a contemporary art gallery in West Hollywood, California, owned by Carlos A. Rivera.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Judithe Hernández</span> American Chicana artist

Judithe Hernández is an American artist and educator, she is known as a muralist, pastel artist, and painter. She a pioneer of the Chicano art movement and a former member of the art collective Los Four. She is based in Los Angeles, California and previously lived in Chicago.

Patssi Valdez is an American Chicana artist. She is a founding member of the art collective Asco. Valdez's work represents some of the finest Chicana avant-garde expressionism which includes but not limited to painting, sculpture and fashion design. She lives and works in Los Angeles, California.

Willie Herrón III is an American Chicano muralist, performance artist and commercial artist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mark Bryan (artist)</span> American painter

Mark Bryan is an American painter. Bryan's work travels in two distinct directions. Satirical works of social, political and religious comment and works which take an inward track to the imagination and subconscious. Humor and parody play a large role in many of his paintings. Style elements and influences in his work include classical painting, illustration, Romanticism, Surrealism and Pop Surrealism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edith R. Wyle</span> American painter (1918–1999)

Edith Robinson Wyle was an American artist and arts patron, founder of the Craft and Folk Art Museum in Los Angeles.

Frederick John Eversley is an American sculptor who lives in Venice Beach, California and Soho, New York. He creates sculptures from cast resin and other materials, "a medium that makes possible many different effects, ranging from opacity to complete transparency. Eversley casts resin, a technically demanding material, into large cylinders; then, through cutting and polishing alters their form." Eversley's first solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum was in 1970; later, in 1977, he became the first artist-in-residence at the Smithsonian Institution's Air and Space Museum.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dora De Larios</span> American ceramist and sculptor

Dora De Larios was an American ceramist and sculptor working in Los Angeles. She was known for her work's clean lines and distinctive glazes, as well as for her line of tableware created under her family-run company Irving Place Studio. Also a muralist working with tile, De Larios was noted for her style, which reflects mythological and pan-cultural themes.

Yreina Cervantez is an American artist and Chicana activist who is known for her multimedia painting, murals, and printmaking. She has exhibited nationally and internationally, and her work is in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, The Mexican Museum, the Los Angeles County Museum, and the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chicano Art: Resistance and Affirmation</span>

Chicano Art: Resistance and Affirmation was a traveling exhibit of Chicano/a artists which toured the United States from 1990 through 1993. CARA visited ten major cities and featured over 128 individual works by about 180 different Chicano/a artists. The show was also intended to visit Madrid and Mexico City. CARA was the first time a Chicano exhibit received major attention from the press and it was the first exhibit that collaborated between Chicanos and major museums in the U.S. The show was considered a "notable event in the development of Chicano art." Another unique feature of CARA was the "extensive planning" that attempted to be as inclusive as possible and which took place more than five years prior to the opening at Wight Art Gallery.

Sonia Amalia Romero is an American artist, she is known for her printmaking, mixed media linocut prints, murals, and public art based in Los Angeles. She is known for depicting Los Angeles, Latin American imagery, and Chicano themes in her work.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chicana art</span>

Chicana art as a specific genre emerged as part of the Chicano Movement of the 1960s and used art to express political and social resistance. Through different art mediums both past and contemporary, Chicana artists explore and interrogate traditional Mexican-American values and embody feminist themes through different mediums including murals, painting, photography, and more. The momentum created from the Chicano Movement spurred a Chicano Renaissance among Chicanas and Chicanos. Political art was created by poets, writers, playwrights, and artists and used to defend against their oppression and societal marginalization. During the 1970s, Chicana feminist artists differed from their Anglo-feminist counterparts in the way they collaborated. Chicana feminist artists often utilized artistic collaborations and collectives that included men, while Anglo-feminist artists generally utilized women-only participants.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art, Culture & Industry</span> An American academic center and art museum

The Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art, Culture & Industry of the Riverside Art Museum, or The Cheech, is an art museum and academic center in Riverside, California, United States. The center is focused on the presentation and study of chicano art from across the United States. It is a collaborative effort between stand-up comedian, actor, and writer Cheech Marin, who has donated his collection of more than 700 pieces of Chicano art, the City of Riverside, which provided the facilities to house the collection, and the Riverside Art Museum, which manages the center. The collection is housed in the old Riverside public library, and strives to be a world-class institution for the research and study of "all things [related to] Chicano art". It will be the first North American facility dedicated to Mexican-American art.

References

  1. "Frank Romero (American, b.1941)". McNay Art Museum Online Collection. Retrieved 2021-02-22.
  2. Sentís, Mireia; Vargas, George (2007). Pintores de Aztlán (in Spanish). La Casa Encendida. ISBN   978-84-95321-98-5.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Miranda, Carolina A. (2017-03-09). "Chicano art pioneer Frank Romero is still painting, still loves cars and still defends ugly palm trees" . Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2021-02-22.
  4. 1 2 3 "Oral history interview with Frank Romero, 1997 January 17-March 2". Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. Retrieved 2021-02-22.
  5. "Pioneering Chicano artist Frank Romero honored in career retrospective". ABC7 Los Angeles. 2017-02-19. Retrieved 2021-02-22.
  6. Avila, Eric (2007). "East Side Stories: Freeways and Their Portraits in Chicano Los Angeles". Landscape Journal. 26 (1): 83–97. doi:10.3368/lj.26.1.83. ISSN   0277-2426. JSTOR   43323756. S2CID   108445910.
  7. Landauer, Susan; Gerdts, William H.; Trenton, Patricia (2003-11-10). The Not-So-Still Life: A Century of California Painting and Sculpture. University of California Press. p. 197. ISBN   978-0-520-23938-8.
  8. 1 2 3 Congdon, Kristin G.; Hallmark, Kara Kelley (2002). Artists from Latin American Cultures: A Biographical Dictionary. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 235. ISBN   978-0-313-31544-2.
  9. "Frank Romero". Smithsonian American Art Museum. Retrieved 2021-02-22.
  10. "New York, New York, U.S., Marriage License Indexes, 1907-2018" . Ancestry.com. New York City Clerk's Office, New York City, New York. 1969.
  11. "California, U.S., Marriage Index, 1960-1985" . Ancestry.com. Center for Health Statistics, California Department of Health Services.
  12. 1 2 "Sonia Romero". LA County Arts Commission. Retrieved 2021-02-22.