Chicano Art Digital Image Collection

||Assemblage||Atelier||Center Activities and Programs||Drawings||Graphic Arts||
|| Indigenous Chicano Mediums and Art Forms||Installation Art||Murals||Paintings||
|| Performance and Conceptual Art|| Photography|| Sculptures || Taxonomy||

Introduction

This collection is a representative sampling of the vast, cataloged archival images in Chicano visual arts in the California Ethnic and Multicultural Archives (CEMA) It was assembled from the individual slide collections of various cultural arts centers and collectives, with their permission. The aim of this brief visual catalog is to make Chicano art more accessible to the general public. It is part of a much larger project that preserves the visual images of the Chicano Art Movement for research and study through CEMA. CEMA is based in the Department of Special Collections in the Davidson Library at the University of California at Santa Barbara. This visual catalog is a product of Proyecto RESCATE (Re-Constituting Selected Chicano Archives for Transitioning into Electronic Format), a one-year project of CEMA. Proyecto RESCATE itself was established to make accessible to a much larger public the visual resources made available through Proyecto CARIDAD (Chicano Art Resources Development and Dissemination). Usefulness of Visual Catalog

People with varying levels of awareness and knowledge about Chicano art will find this collection useful. For those with no prior experience with Chicano art, these materials will at the least be enlightening; for those already familiar with the field, such as students of art history, the slides will affirm, reinforce, and enrich what they may already know.

For the purpose of this discussion the concept of "Chicano art" is defined in Chicano Art: A Resource Guide. As such, the definition is inclusive and it applies to the cultural arts that were produced by Chicanos as well as works created by certain non-Chicano artists. These latter artists were affiliated with one or more of the Chicano cultural centers represented in this collection. They are artists who have been part of the exhibitions and have demonstrated a strong identification with the Chicano Movement and a commitment to the ideals inherent in Chicano art.

Contents

The collection presented here consists of 1,362 images and their descriptions. These were selected as a small cross-section of a much larger collection of more than 14,000 archival slides in the collections of four of California's most important Chicano/Latino cultural arts centers/galleries. The slide archives of those centers are already established in CEMA as permanent collections. Those four centers include San Diego's Centro Cultural de la Raza, Los Angeles' Self-Help Graphics & Art , San Francisco's Galería de la Raza, and Sacramento's Royal Chicano Air Force. More information about the centers is found in Chicano Art: A Resource Guide. To view a larger size version of the thumbnail, simply click the image.

Completeness

It should be pointed out that to a certain extent the present catalog is a "work in progress." The entries are as complete as possible; some of the information about the images is listed as "unknown" and, it is hoped that with the passage of time, the cataloging will be updated. Artists and others who may be knowledgeable about those particular works are invited to contact CEMA to update the documentation. Accent marks are used throughout the catalog unless the artist of a work chose not to use these either for his or her name or for the title of the work.

Arrangement

The individual images in this online catalog are organized first according to major category of art medium, such as "Drawings," "Graphic Arts," or "Murals." Within these broader categories the individual images are arranged in alphabetical order by name of the artist. Please note that there is a glossary accompanying this visual catalog, defining the thirteen art medium classifications that were used to group the images.

Copyright and Permissions

This collection is brought to you with the express permission of the respective cultural centers from whose archives they were drawn. Any questions concerning the contents of the catalog should be directed to the California Ethnic and Multicultural Archives. The artist of any work retains all rights to that work. No further reproduction is permitted without prior written permission by the artist or copyright holder. The contact information to the respective cultural arts center is provided as a link from each catalog entry. Any requests for permission to reproduce further must be directed to that center. Double click the copyright statement accompanying each image to display copyright information.

Resolution Level

The resolution level for each image is limited on the Web to 72 d.p.i. The human eye does not detect any noticeable difference in resolution on a computer screen above 72 dots per inch. The quality of printing off the Web at that level is intentionally low. Higher resolution levels do exist at 600 d.p.i. and at 1350 d.p.i. These were kept off the web and are the exclusive right of the copyright holders.

Visual Quality

These images were selected for inclusion in consultation with the cultural arts centers from whose collections they came, and with the assistance of Chicano art historian Dr. Ramón Favela. The digital quality of the images will vary principally because the image quality of the original slides from which they were scanned varies. As noted by Chicana artist Yolanda Lopez "I cannot underscore enough the importance of this emerging catalog. It is a first-generation documentation of Chicano art work that reflects our first forays as artists into the process of visual documentation. In many cases, what survived as a photographic visual record of our work as artists is less than ideal, but it is nevertheless an important part of our history and our consciousness."

Funding

The project was supported in part by the U.S. Department of Education under the provisions of the Library Services and Construction Act, administered in California by the State Librarian.