GRACE LANE GALLERY
2930 Grace Lane, Costa Mesa, 92626
- 800-697-0446 or
714-545-1773
gracelanegallery.com Presents an Exclusive Summer Exhibition
LATINO
MURALISTS: Brushes With History
East Los Streetscapers, Gateway To Manifest Destiny,
1982, Acrylic on canvas, 116 x 196 inches
Benefitting MALDEF - Mexican American Legal Defense &
Educational Fund
August 13 - September 30, 2009
Opening Reception: Thursday,
August 13, 5:00 - 8:00 pm
Since 1968 MALDEF has been an
outstanding advocate for Hispanic Americans. Through its legal activism, and its
political and educational programs, Latino communities across
America have been lifted up by its defense of personal
freedom. Grace Lane Gallery is proud to assist this highly
important non-profit agency in achieving its financial goals.
[All mural sales revenue goes to MALDEF, less
commissions and artists' re-sale fees].
Latino mural art is a tradition with roots
in the revolutionary broadsides and democratic murals of pre-revolutionary
Mexico.
The provocative paintings of Los Tres Grandes -
Orozco, Rivera and Sequeiros - from the Presidential Palace in Mexico City,
to the towers of Rockefeller Center, provided the template for
subsequent painters in the genre.
Los Angeles mural painting also developed
from the graffitists and taggers who have deployed their art as markers of
identity
and territorial interest. Latino and Chicano muralists have
raised the profile of this public art by embracing not only their
comunidad,
but also by elevating the style so as to be inclusive of broad
social and historical imagery and issues. It is an art born and matured
in the public eye.
The three key murals in the
exhibition, Gateway To Manifest Destiny, Mural Of Muralists,
and Top Hat Bridal Shop Mural, are
evidence of this weaving together of the public and private
strands of Latin and US history. They eventually became part of the
renowned collection of the Ramiro Salcedo, a partner in Victor
Clothing Company in downtown Los Angeles where some of the
artists had studios in the building and
traded their work for space and services. After the store closed many works were sold, including
one of the largest, The Broadway
Mural (10 panels, 60-feet in length), which was acquired in 2001 by the
Peter Norton Foundation.
Mural of Muralists, by Eloy
Torrez, combines portraits of several of Los Angeles' best-known muralists in a
mid-freeway
setting. Kent Twitchell, Betye Saar &
Carlos Almaraz attend the artist as he paints symbolic figures on the roadbed of
a
mysteriously quiet underpass.
Eloy Torrez, Mural of Muralists, 1985, Acrylic on
canvas, 117 x 169 inches
In The Top Hat Bridal Shop Mural,
a timeless frieze of weddings in East LA, John Valadez invites us in as family
to see
his hugely expanded five-panel "snapshot" of local
Angeleno history.
John Valadez, Top Hat Bridal Shop Mural, 1985,
Acrylic on five panels, 96 x 240 inches
Gateway To Manifest Destiny, by the
mural collective East Los Streetscapers (Wayne Healy, David Botello and George
Yepes)
was painted in St. Louis beneath the Gateway Arch. Designed as
a great map with territories bearing Chicano names, the
mythical and real figures of western culture such as Huck Finn
and a now-liberated Jim, Sacajawea, and the Pony Express rider,
spread a mixed and dynamic American culture to the Pacific
shores.
East Los Streetscapers, Gateway To Manifest Destiny (detail),
1982
From Mark Twain's Mississippi River to the suburban sprawl of
western California these murals lay out the archetypes and the
history of our great American drama. Please join us
for the "widescreen" experience of these great paintings.
LATINO
MURALISTS: Brush With History
Benefitting MALDEF - Mexican American Legal Defense & Educational Fund
August 13 - September 30, 2009
Opening Reception
Thursday, August 13, 5:00 - 8:00pm
GRACE LANE GALLERY
, 2930
Grace Lane, Ste. F. Costa Mesa 92626
Map @ gracelanegallery.com
800-697-0446 714-545-1773
Contact: Fred Page,
Director
fred@page-art.com 
