Biographical Sketch
Salvador Roberto Torres is a Chicano (Mexican American) artist, born in El Paso Texas, on July 3, 1936. He is married to fellow artist Gloria Rebolledo Torres. He is considered to be an important and influential figure in the Chicano art movement, owing as much to his art as to his civic work as a cultural activist. Torres’ primary media are painting and mural painting. Selected exhibitions that have included his work are “Califas: Chicano Art and Culture in California” (University of California, Santa Cruz, 1981), “Salvador Roberto Torres” (Hyde Gallery, Grossmont College, San Diego, 1988), the nationally touring “Chicano Art: Resistance and Affirmation: 1965-1985”, (Wight Art Gallery, UCLA, 1990-1993), “International Chicano Art Exhibition” (San Diego, 1999), “Viva la Raza Art Exhibition” (San Diego Repertory Theater Gallery, 2000), and “Made in California: 1900-2000” (Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2000).
Torres was born in Texas but as a young child he moved with his family in 1942 to settle in Logan Heights, San Diego. It was there that Torres attended public schools, and later, San Diego City College where he earned a statewide art scholarship to the California College of Arts & Crafts in Oakland, California. In 1964 Torres earned the B.A. Ed. in art from the California College of Arts and Crafts. In 1973 he earned the M.A. in painting and drawing from San Diego State University. Among the various positions he has held have included artist, muralist, and Metro Gallery director. Since 1973 he has been a lecturer and tour guide for the Chicano Park Murals. He has taught painting, drawing and ceramics for Springfield College in San Diego. He has taught painting and drawing for the Adult Education Program, Coronado High School. From 1987-1991 he was Assistant Professor in policy studies in language and cross-cultural education at San Diego State University. From 1963-1967 he taught painting and drawing at various institutions, including Diablo Valley Junior College in Contra Costa, California and for the City of Oakland Recreation Department. From 1960 to the present Torres has also been Assistant to the Art Director at XETV Channel 6, in San Diego, in the field of video design.
As a painter, Torres is best known for his compelling 1969 “Viva La Raza”, an oil on canvas painting depicting the transformation of the United Farm Workers’ eagle into a rising phoenix. A former farm worker, Torres’ vivid rendering of the rallying cry “Viva la Raza” was captured in bold strokes and slashes. These visual icons became enduring symbols of the farm worker and the Chicano art movements. Torres describes his work as Chicano art that is “based upon the creative Chicano lifestyle, whose Mexican and American interrelationships and cultural influences form its ideologies and themes.” (Chicano art: resistance and affirmation, 1965-1985. Los Angeles: Wight Art Gallery, University of California, Los Angeles, 1991). Torres, a lifelong artist and arts educator in California, is best known as the “architect of the dream” for his crucial role in the creation of San Diego’s Chicano Park, the largest collection of Chicano murals in the world, and for being a founder of the Centro Cultural de la Raza, also in San Diego. He became its first director, and later helped form Las Toltecas en Aztlán, a Chicano artist group that was instrumental in eventually converting the Ford Building in Balboa Park into the present cultural arts museum and center, the Centro Cultural de la Raza.
Torres began his teaching career in 1963 at Berkeley Elementary School and at the Walnut Creek Civic Arts Center, and went on to teach a wide variety of classes to all levels of students. He also participated in and conducted instructional television art classes for several stations in San Francisco. Torres worked and studied in the San Francisco Bay Area for six years. There he met other Chicano artists who were all exploring ways to integrate their Mexican American roots into their work as artists. After returning to San Diego in 1968, Torres began work on his Master of Fine Arts degree at San Diego State University, where he began bringing Chicano artists together to talk about cultural and artistic issues of the Chicano community.
It was also during this period that Torres became involved in the creation of Chicano Park and conceived of the idea of the Monumental Public Mural Project he later helped create. On April 22, 1970, local residents protesting the proposed use of the land for a new Highway Patrol parking lot occupied the land underneath the Coronado Bridge in the Logan Heights neighborhood of San Diego. Torres proclaimed that, “Chicano artists and sculptors would turn the great columns of the bridge approach into things of beauty, reflecting Mexican-American culture.” In search of inspiration and guidance for this project, Torres traveled to Mexico City to videotape the dedication of Siquieros' mural at the Polyforum. Hearing Siquieros speak about the history of his murals and the Congress of Revolutionary Painters, of which Siquieros was a part, propelled Torres to create a similar statement for the people of Logan Heights. True to his word, in 1973, Torres began work on the mural project in the newly created Chicano Park. Inviting artists from San Diego, Los Angeles, and Tijuana to participate, Torres’ vision became a reality as the giant pillars of Coronado Bridge were transformed from graffiti-covered eyesores into works of art.
More recently, Torres assisted in producing an award-winning documentary film on the History of Chicano Park and its Monumental Public Mural Concept. Torres’ vision and his art have been described as “uplifting, lyrical, inventive, and often humorous.” Recent mural projects have included “The Kelco Historical Community Mural”, that Torres completed in 1993 with his artist wife Gloria. Situated in San Diego’s Barrio Logan, the mural is an evocative historical account of the contributions of the people of Logan Heights and provides a glimpse of the future of the children of that community. In 2000, Torres was commissioned to design and create murals on simulated pillars for an NBC television pilot “Fortunate son” (Stu Segall Productions, San Diego) and also was commissioned by the La Joya Playhouse to create backdrops for the production “The Birth of Corn” based on a Mayan legend. In explaining his life’s work, Torres states “I choose these creative experiences to create and discover a new horizon in the history of art, a horizon inspired by the spiritual ideals and realities of La Raza and by other Chicana/Chicano and international artists who are striving to achieve social justice and freedom of self-expression on all artistic levels”(Chicano art: resistance and affirmation, 1965-1985).
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