One of the leading artists in the Chicano Movement of the late 1960s and early 70s, Rupert Garcia participated in the formation of several seminal West Coast civil rights movement-oriented workshops and collectives. He helped to found the San Francisco Poster Workshop, which had been forced off the San Francisco State University campus during the Vietnam War and concurrent civil rights protests, and Galeria de la Raza. As Regents’ Lecturer in the UCSB Departments of Art Studio and Chicano Studies, Garcia will give two public lectures with slide illustration; The Virgin of Guadalupe in the Art of Mexico and Mexican America on Wednesday, May 3 at 4 p.m. in the UCSB MultiCultural Center Theater and The Art of Rupert Garcia: Ways of Knowledge, Feeling and Enchantment on Tuesday, May 9 at 5 p.m. in the UCSB Isla Vista Theater on the corner of Embarcadero del Norte and Trigo Roads in Isla Vista.

Garcia’s early work was primarily in the medium of silkscreen poster art, in which he developed a unique and colorful style of portraiture. From his earliest work, he expressed a commitment to the democratic and nationalist ideals of the Chicano Movement and created images in solidarity with other liberation movements, especially those in Indochina, Cuba and even Native American communities in the United States. His work has been included in virtually every major exhibition of Chicano art in this country, as well as abroad.

Born in French Camp, California and later a resident of Stockton, Garcia was exposed to folk arts of all kinds among the many artistically inclined members of his immediate and extended family. He studied painting and received numerous student honors at Stockton Junior College and at San Francisco State University (SFSU) where he was influenced by Photo-Realism. There he participated in a campus-wide student strike and, with other art students and faculty, organized a workshop on campus, which later became the San Francisco Poster Workshop, producing posters to support student strikes, the Chicano and other U.S. movements for civil, cultural and economic rights, as well as to denounce racism, the Vietnam War, police brutality, mass media and advertising, Pop Art, art and corporate America.

After graduating from SFSU, Garcia produced a signature work, a portrait of Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara above the slogan “Right On!” His continued involvement with the S.F. Poster Workshop introduced him to Jobu Solo, founder and director of the Black Man’s Gallery, the poster art of Cuba, the graphic work of Black Panther Party Minister of Culture Emory Douglas, and artist/cultural activist Francisco X. Camplis, who invited Garcia to join Artes 6, a Chicano-Latino gallery and collective. In 1969 he produced a famous portrait of Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata as a promotional effort for Bay Area Spanish langauge newspaper La Prensa, for which he also made a series of drawings of the indigenous peoples of Latin America.

Among the various artists who established the Galeria de la Raza in San Francisco’s Mission District, Garcia maintained his alliance with the Galeria as an active member until the mid-1970s, designing and producing posters for exhibitions and events, assisting in curating shows, and writing catalogue and brochure essays. He created posters for the 1970 Chicano War Moratoriam in East Los Angeles and the Ruben Salazar Memorial Exhibition at the Galeria for which he also painted a portrait of the slain Los Angeles Times journalist. From 1972 to 74, he also designed book covers and posters as a member of Third World Communications, a Bay Area collective of Latino, Asian American and African American artists. In 1976, he produced four silkscreen posters with La Raza Silkscreen Center, a Latino graphics center also located in San Francisco’s Mission District.

That same year, Garcia had his first solo exhibition of large scale pastels at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. In 1980, the first survey of his prints and posters, Rupert Garcia: Poster and Silkscreen Art was mounted at the Coffman Memorial Union, University of Minneapolis, Minnesota. In 1982, he participated as an artist and essayist in the first major international exhibition of Chicano art, A Traves de la Frontera in Mexico City. Throughout the 1980s, he continued to produce posters, pastels, oil paintings and lithographs.

Garcia’s awards and honors also began to mount, among them an individual artist fellowship grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. In 1992, he received four major awards: The President’s Scholar Award from San Jose State University, where he has taught in the School of Art and Design since 1988; the San Joaquin Delta College’s Distinguished Alumni Award; KGO-TV’s Profile of Excellence Award and the College Art Association’s Distinguished Award for Lifetime Achievement. In 1995, he received the National Hispanic Academy of Media Arts and Sciences’ Lifetime Achivement Award in Art.

His work has been collected in two major retrospective exhibitions: The Art of Rupert Garcia at San Francisco’s Mexican Museum in 1986 and Rupert Garcia: Prints and Posters, 1967-1990 mounted by the Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts, Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco which later traveled throughout the United States and to Mexico City.

The bulk of Garcia’s work is housed in the National Archives of American Art at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. Some early prints are housed at the UCSB Library’s California Ethnic and Multicultural Archives (CEMA).

Garica authored a biography of Frida Kahlo in 1983, Frida Kahlo: A Bibliography and Biographical Introduction. It was the first major study of the Mexican painter.

Garcia’s second lecture is a featured event for UCSB Arts Tuesday on May 9, when UCSB celebrates the vibrant cultural life of the campus between 4 and 10 p.m. including the re-opening of the UCSB Museum of Art, gallery walkabouts, and live performances by local and international touring artists. Dinner is available at several locations around campus and parking is free on campus after 5 p.m.

For tickets or more information,
call UCSB Arts & Lectures at (805) 893-3535.

Editor: For photos, please call
Roman Baratiak at (805) 893-2080.