An Afternoon of Art with My Friend Chris

On Wednesday, November 5th, Chris and I had lunch at Tomayo's Restaurant in East Los Angeles and enjoyed the paintings and prints by the Mexican artist Rufino Tomayo, 1899-1991.  Tomayo paintings are described as "figurative abstraction with surrealist influences."  His paintings reflected his Zapotec heritage and the revolutionary times in Mexico.

Tomayo's restaurant art gallery was opened in a 1928 Hacienda like structure at 5300 E. Olympic in 1989.  In addition to the art by Tomayo and his students that adorn the walls of the restaurant, a gallery upstairs has paintings for sale by Latin American artists.  Here is a sample of Tomayo's art on the walls of the restaurant:

The following paintings are in the upstairs gallery by the artist Esau Andrade who was born in Tepic Nayarit, Mexico.  He comes from a family of folk artists.  He studied the works of Mexican artists Diego Rivera and Rufino Tomayo.  He has also illustrated several children's books.  Here are a few of my favorites:

"De Madrugada"

"El Elefante"

"De Fiesta," 2009

"Tehuana"

"Pez Y Mar," 2007

We then visited the Vincent Price Art Museum on the campus of East Los Angeles College in Monterey Park.  Vincent Price and his wife, Mary, donated 90 artworks from their personal collection in 1957,  The original donation included Mesoamerican, African, Native American and European artworks.  The Prices donated a told of about 2,000 pieces of art over the next four decades.  This inspired many others to donate art to the museum which now total more than 8,000 pieces. Representations from the permanent collection are located on the third floor of the museum.  Roberto Chavez and The False University exhibit is on the second floor and a Juried Student Art Exhibit is on the first floor.  

Here are some of my favorites:

"Father and Son," 1960 by Fritz Faiss, Germany, 1905-1981, oil on board

"Protesta," 1983 by Rufino Tomayo, Mexico 1899-1991, mixography on cast pulp paper

"Tete de Femme," 1978 by Patrick Gerald Wah, Haiti, b. 1957, oil on canvas

"Unknown," 1920 by Alexej von Jawlensky, Russia, 1864-1941, ink on paper.

"Blue horse," by Jesus Reyes Ferreira, Mexico, 1880-1977, Gouache on paper

"The Shoemaker," by Rafael Coronel, Mexico, b. 1931, acrylic and charcoal on paper.

"Los Constructivos Reposos del Director General,"  by Felipe Orlando, Mexico, 1911-2001, oil on canvas.

"Indigenous Family," 1976 by Francisco Zuniga, Mexico, 1912-1998, color lithograph on paper.

"Untitled," 1973 by Pablo O'Higgins, born 1904 Utah, USA, died 1983 Mexico, lithograph on paper

Vincent Price with his collection of ancient art of the Americas at his home in the Holmby Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles in late 1950's.

Ritual Censer, 200-600 CE Veracruz, Gulf Coast, Mexico

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Several ceramics from Peru including the one front and center dated 180 BCE to 500 CE from the Southern Coast. 

These are dated 100-300 CE, from West Mixico.

These Vessels are dated 150-800 CE from the Northern Coast of Peru.

This next exhibit is entitled "Roberto Chavez and The False University:  A Retrospective."  Roberto Chavez, born in 1932,  grew up in East Los Angeles and eared his MFA from UCLA.  He joined the East Los Angeles College faculty in the 1960's and pioneered the Chicano Studies Department.  The exhibit contains over 50 artworks dating from the late 1940's to the present. They are painted with oil on canvas unless otherwise noted. Chavez painted a large mural on the wall of one of the buildings entitled "The Path to Knowledge and the False University" in 1974 that was whitewashed over at the direction of the college president in 1979.   This created a major controversy in the Los Angeles community.  Pictures of the mural are included below.

"The Artist as Tokyo Joe," 1959

"Self-Portrait with Beard," 1979

"Japanese Fish Kite," 1956

"Still Life with Alabaster Banana," 1960

"The Group Shoe," 1962

"Art Mobile Demo Piece," 1958

"The Path to Knowledge and the False University," 1974, photo of mural painted on Ingalls Auditorium and later whitewashed over.

"Parade," 1966 

"El Politico," 1962

"ELAC Student Leader," 1979

"Self-Portrait with Tando," 1957

"Carp," 1983

"Iphigenia," 2014
This painting portrays the mythological Greek protagonist, the fated daughter of King Agamemnon and Clytemnestra of Trojan War lore.  The description next to the painting states that Iphigenia was killed by her father as commanded as a sacrifice in order to allow his ships to sail to Troy.  She is a metaphor of man's ambitions and the innocent lives they surrender.

"The Artist's Mother," 1970

"Clouds," 1983, watercolor on paper.