Carlos Almaraz
MFA Fine Arts - 1974
Carlos Almaraz ('74, MFA Fine Arts), born in Mexico City in 1941, grew up in Chicago
and Los Angeles. Considered one of the preeminent members of L.A.’s Chicano School
during the 1970s and ‘80s, Almaraz helped bring Chicano street art into mainstream
art circles. ...
As a member of the Los Four collective, together with Frank Romero, Roberto de la
Rocha and Gilbert Lujan, and his wife Elsa Flores Almaraz, he collaborated on many
public murals in L.A. He was also a prolific painter and printmaker whose work captured
the vitality and life of East Los Angeles neighborhoods such as Echo Park with bright
violets, hot pinks and bloodlike reds and expressionistic paint handling. From his
apartment window, he painted the view in various incarnations, from serenely bucolic
to hot, feverish and dangerous. Despite his untimely death in 1989, Almaraz continues
to influence younger generations through exhibitions and collections.
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