Title
César Chávez
Creator
Website
Description
Lithograph on paper, 31 in. x 22.5 in. Chicano artist Luis Jiménez created a portrait of famous Chicano activist César Estrada Chávez (1927 – 1993), an iconic figure in the American civil rights movement. Jiménez captured Chávez’s humble nature, his gritty determination, and his silent power; his lips parted, he appears to be speaking directly to the viewer. Chávez organized protest marches to demand labor rights for Mexican and Chicano migrant farm workers. Along with Dolores Huerta, he organized the United Farm Workers (UFW) in 1962, the first Mexican American labor group to be recognized by the AFL-CIO (American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations). To garner support from American consumers, Chávez mounted a nation-wide boycott of iceberg lettuce and grapes. A pacifist inspired by Gandhi, Chávez practiced nonviolent resistance in his protests, and he fasted to gain public sympathy for the UFW and its fight for labor rights. His protests and speeches inflamed growers, and he received countless death threats. His constant fasting vigils may have weakened his health, and he died of natural causes. Tens of thousands of mourners attended his funeral, where he was called an American hero-martyr. César Chávez Day (March 31, his birthday) is a U.S. federal commemorative holiday, as proclaimed by President Barack Obama in 2014. Proud of his Chicano roots, Luis Jiménez (1940 – 2006) was an El Paso, Texas native, best known for his large-scale, brightly colored sculptures immersed in the Chicano iconography of Texas and New Mexico. Jiménez studied art and architecture at The University of Texas in Austin and El Paso. He eventually traveled to Mexico to study the famous Mexican muralists Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco, and was also influenced by regionalists Thomas Hart Benton and Grant Wood. After completing school, he went to work for his father making neon signs and car decals. In 1966 Jiménez moved to New York and joined the Pop Art scene, making painted fiberglass figurative works inspired by the everyday lives of Latinos living in the Southwest. His work shows his concern for working-class people and those who have suffered from discrimination. Jimenez was and remains respected in Latino communities for his perspective and narrative of the culture of Mexico and the Southwest. His artwork emulates popular Cholo car culture, demonstrated in his use of fiberglass, spray paint, and imagery consisting of Aztec emperors, border crossing, and vaqueros riding wild broncos. His works are in the collections of the Albuquerque Museum, the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C., the El Paso Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, among others.
Subject
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Access Rights
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