On Friday, May 30, 2020, a large and historically significant painting by noted Chicana muralist, Carlota Espinoza, was installed in the Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales Branch Library at 1498 Irving Street in Denver.
Mexican Heroes (also known as A Tribute to Mexican Heroes) is a roughly 4.5 x 9-foot oil on canvas painting. The current work is actually a fragment of a mural that had an accompanying, but now lost, second mural; the two pieces were installed in the El Grito de Aztlan Gallery at the Crusade for Justice Center in about 1969.
The Crusade for Justice, a national activist organization in the Chicano Movement was founded by activist Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales in 1966. The organization opened the Crusade for Justice Center with much fanfare on Friday, September 13, 1968. It was located in the former Calvary Baptist Church at 1567 North Downing Street in the North Capitol Hill neighborhood.
Integral to the Center was the El Grito de Aztlan Gallery, founded by artist Carlos Santistevan. It was the first Chicano art gallery in the city and the space allowed for the sharing of ideas and symbolism which helped to create a link between art and activism. Santistevan was also the co-founder and first Executive Director of the CHAC (Chicano Humanities and Arts Council).
Mexican Heroes depicts three individuals important to Mexico’s history: the 26th President of Mexico, Benito Juarez (1806-1872); Mexican Revolutionary Emiliano Zapata Salazar (1879-1919); and Francisco "Pancho" Villa (1878-1923), Mexican Revolutionary General. Surrounding the three portraits are small vignettes depicting the struggles faced by the Mexican people as well as a representation of the execution of Emperor Maximilian in 1867.
According to documentation found in the artwork’s accession file, the painting was created in 1966 and is signed “CE-66’” in the lower right-hand corner under the image of the body of Emiliano Zapata Salazar. Below that is an additional signature in white, “Carlota.D.EspinoZa.” This signature was added by the artist before the artwork was donated to the DPL Western Art Collection in December 2012 by Carlos and Anita Santistevan.
For clarity, a “mural” is here defined by the Getty Research Institute’s Art and Architecture Thesaurus as… “decorations in any medium that dominate a wall (or ceiling) surface; most often refers to works executed on the wall, but may also refer to works done separately and affixed to the wall.”
The two murals were still in the Crusade for Justice Center when the building caught fire on June 13, 1988. Although the second mural was destroyed, Mexican Heroes survived and may be the only physical remnant of the Center that still exists. Even with the loss of canvas and smoke damage, from a purely visual point of view, the mural is essentially complete. The darkening of the surface area only serves to heighten the emotional impact of the imagery and makes the fragment function as both representative art and historic object.
After the fire, Mexican Heroes was salvaged from the Crusade for Justice Center by Carlos Santistevan. For roughly the next 17 years, the canvas was in the possession of the Chicano Humanities and Arts Council (CHAC). In 2005, the painting was returned to Carlos Santistevan at the request of Carlota Espinoza.
Artist Carlota Espinoza was born in Fraser, Colorado. She is the middle child of 14 siblings. Espinoza began painting at a young age. In the 1960s, she attended the Rocky Mountain School of the Arts and the University of Colorado at Denver. She participated in the Centro Cultural Center, organized exhibitions for artists, and was involved in the 1969 "Hispano Art Fiesta / Cinco de Mayo" events in Denver. Espinoza has had a long and illustrious career as an artist, muralist, teacher, and advocate for Chicano art.
Mexican Heroes is similar to another mural by Carlota Espinoza, Pasado, presente, futuro, commissioned in 1975 by the Friends of the Denver Public Library. The 5 x 20-foot mural is also an oil on canvas painting in two parts and is currently on display at the John "Thunderbird Man" Emhoolah, Jr. Branch Library, 675 Santa Fe Drive.
Postscript: In a 1970 article from the Denver Post, Mexican Heroes is referred to under the title: Liberacion.
Updated 5/2022: We have corrected the incorrect fire date in paragraph 8 from March 17, 1973, based on information from Rudy Gonzales, Carlota Espinoza, Carlos Santistevan, and corroborating newspaper research.
Updated 3/2024: Additional clarifying language, background, and documentation added.
SOURCES - Information in this blog was taken from the following sources:
Andres, Rena; The Fine Arts, The Sunday Denver Post, Roundup Section, September 20, 1970, page 10.
“Crusade for Justice to Dedicate Center,” The Sunday Denver Post, September 8, 1968, page 30.
Haddad, Barbara; The Fine Arts, The Sunday Denver Post, Roundup Section, September 29, 1968, page 19.
Haddad, Barbara; The Fine Arts. The Sunday Denver Post, Roundup Section, October 5, 1969, page 13.
Meadows, Mary; Reflections: The Art of Chicana Muralist Carlota Espinoza, The Urban Spectrum, January 1988, page 4.
O’Connor, Colleen; A CUT ABOVE, The Denver Post, March 31, 2016, page 1c.
http://www.lavozcolorado.com/detail.php?id=9856
http://mappingartsproject.org/denver/locations/crusade-for-justice-building/
http://mappingartsproject.org/denver/artists/carlos-santistevan/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlota_D._EspinoZa
https://www.denverpost.com/2007/09/14/el-grito-citys-first-chicano-art-gallery/
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