Rita Moreno was the only Hispanic with
a significant role.
Fine Arts
As in the case of Latino theater, works
by Hispanic American painters, sculptors
and other fine artists in the mid-twenti-
eth century both reflected contemporary
trends in fine art while also were rooted
in the cultural experiences and history of
Latino peoples. During the Great
Depression, a number of Hispanic artists
found work with the New Deal’s Federal
Works Progress Art (WPA) Project.
Although many large scale murals from
this era depicted purely Anglo themes,
the work of some Mexican-American
artists reflected their heritage. For exam-
ple, Antonio Garcia, who was born in
Monterrey, Mexico and studied at the
Chicago Institute of Art, is well known
for his mural Our Lady of Guadeloupe
(1946–47). While employed by the
WPA, New Mexico’s Edward Chavez
painted murals for post offices and other
government buildings in Colorado,
Kansas, Texas and Wyoming. These
murals depicted history, daily life and
industry in each of these regions. In his
Indians on the Plains (1943), his subject
was the Indians and first white men on
the Great Plains.
With the arrival of the 1960s,
Mexican-American art, like its theater,
took a political turn. The Chicano Art
Movement, like the Chicano theater, was
overtly political and sought to celebrate
and demand and respect for Mexican cul-
ture and heritage. Initially, the move-
ment was influenced by the United Farm
Workers’ struggle, and artists referenced
the union’s eagle logo frequently. Ernesto
Palamino, from Fresno, California, was
one of the first Chicano artists. Palamino
often used motifs from pre-Columbian
cultures as well as contemporary Chicano
culture. Luis Jiménez also used pre-
Columbian symbols in his sculptural
work of the 1960s and 1970s.
Meanwhile, New York’s diverse art
scene ranged from realism to conceptual
and abstract. Puerto Rican painter Pedro
Villarini focused on painting objects from
his daily life with great precision. Raphael
Ferrer, born in Santurce, Puerto Rico, on
the other hand, was an installation artist
who used everything from hay bales to
blocks of ice to create his ephemeral
works. And New York-born performance
artist Ralph Ortiz was influenced byLA RAZA UNIDA 165Rita Moreno in West Side Story (Corbis)