Frank Romero USA, b. 1941
A pioneer of the Chicana/o art movement, Frank Romero (b. 1941, Los Angeles) is counted among the earliest and most influential of its participants. Romero’s visual explorations of Chicanidad are cornerstones of this period in art history that arose from El Movimiento, the social and political civil rights movement that began in the early 1970s. Pulling together a diverse cast of signs and symbols to invent a visual language reflective of the multiculturalism that is at the core of the community, Romero drew from both his immediate surroundings of Los Angeles as well as iconographies related to the American Southwest, from where Romero traces part of his ancestry. Romero uses various mediums, such as paintings, murals, neon, and sculptures, to explore narratives within the Chicano experience, Latin American heritage, and American pop culture, providing insight into his experiences as an artist and a Mexican American in East LA.
Throughout his 40-year career as an artist, Frank Romero has been a dedicated member of the Los Angeles arts community. As a member of the 1970’s Chicano art collective, Los Four, Romero and fellow artists Carlos Almaraz, Beto de la Rocha, and Gilbert Lujan helped define and promote Mexican American new awareness through murals, publications, and exhibitions. Los Four's historic 1974 exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) was the country's first show of Chicano art at a major art institution. This was a landmark for the community, seeing that being Chicano was a revisionist idea. “In those days, we were ‘Mexican American.’ White people often would call me ‘Spanish.’ If you were more liberal, you were Mexican American. The whole idea of being Chicano was very radical,” says Romero. Growing up in the multicultural Boyle Heights at the peak of multiple political movements, Romero witnessed over-policing in his neighborhood, sparking him to, down the line, create reflective pieces that highlighted the political unrest and struggle for equality.
Since then, Romero has successfully balanced a career in public and private arenas. He has completed over 15 murals throughout Los Angeles. He was a key contributor to the 1984 Olympic Arts Festival with Going to the Olympics, a large-scale mural painted in one of Los Angeles’ busiest freeways (Highway 101). Romero now spends six months out of the year at his home in Le Vermont, France, where he still paints every day.
Romero has exhibited extensively in the United States, Europe, and Japan. His work is featured in many permanent collections, including the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.; National Museum of Art in Washington D.C.; The Carnegie Art Museum, Oxnard, CA; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; Contemporary Art San Diego, San Diego, CA; The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Los Angeles, CA; Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, TX; and the McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, TX.
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75 Latinx Artists to Know
Maximilíano Durón, Paula Mejía, Mauricio E. Ramírez, Alex Santana, ARTNews, October 15, 2024 -
Texas in Riverside: Cheech Collects at the Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art and Culture, Riverside, California | César A. Martínez
Ruben C. Cordova , Glasstire, October 7, 2023 -
‘The Cheech,’ a Game Changer for Chicano Art, Opens in Riverside | César A. Martínez | Frank Romeo | The De La Torre Brothers
Patricia Escárcega, The New York Times, June 12, 2022 -
Arts Preview: Chicano art pioneer Frank Romero is still painting, still loves cars and still defends ugly palm trees
Carolina A. Miranda, Los Angeles Times , March 9, 2017
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Dreamland: A Frank Romero Retrospective | MoLAA, Los Angeles, CA, 2017
Curator: Edward Hayes | Essay by Patrick H. Ela 2017Paperback, 161 pagesRead more
Dimensions: 12 ¼” W x 9 3/8” L -
Papel Chicano Dos : Works on Paper from the Collection of Cheech Marin | César A. Martínez, Frank Romero
Essays by Cheech Marin and Melissa Richardson Banks Cheech Marin, Melissa Richardson Banks, 2016Hardcover, 96 pagesRead more
Publisher: CauseConnect -
Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art / Smithsonian American Art Museum
Chuck Ramirez, Celia Álvarez Muñoz, Mel Casas, Jesse Amado, Frank Romero Essay by E. Carmen Ramos, and introduction by Tomás Ybarra-Frausto, 2014Hard Cover, 368 pagesRead more
Publisher: Smithsonian American Art Museum
ISBN: 978-0-937311-94-1
Dimensions: 10 x 12" -
Papel Chicano: Works on Paper from the Collection of Cheech Marin | César A. Martínez, Frank Romero
Essays by Cheech Marin and Melissa Richardson Banks Cheech Marin, Melissa Richardson Banks, 2007Hardcover, 96 pagesRead more
Publisher: La Mano Press -
Contemporary Chicana and Chicano Art: Artists, Works, Culture, and Education | Celia Álvarez Muñoz, Consuelo Jimenez Underwood, César A. Martínez, Frank Romero
Essays by Gary D. Keller, Mary Erickson, Kaytie Johnson, and Joaquín Alvarado Gary D. Keller, Mary Erickson, Kaytie Johnson, Joaquín Alvarado, 2003 Read more -
Chicano Visions : American Painters on the Verge | César A. Martínez, Frank Romero
Essay by Cheech Marin Cheech Marin, 2002Paperback, 160 pagesRead more
Publisher: Little Brown & Co -
Chicano Art: Resistance and Affirmation, 1965-1985
Celia Alvarez Muñoz, Mel Casas, César A. Martínez, Frank Romero Richard Criswold Del Castillo, Teresa McKenna & Yvonne Yarbro-Bejarano, editors, 1991Softcover, 373 pagesRead more
Publisher: Wight Art Gallery, University of California, Los Angeles
ISBN: 0943739152
Dimensions: 9.25 x 1.25 x 12.5 in -
Hispanic Art in the United States | César A. Martínez & Frank Romero
John Beardsley and Jane Livingston, with an essay by Octavio Paz John Beardsley and Jane Livingston, with an essay by Octavio Paz, 1987 Read more -
Chicano Expressions New View in American Art | INTAR Latin American Gallery 1986 | César A. Martínez, Frank Romero
Essays by Inverna Lockpez, Tomas Ybarra Fausto, Judith Baca, and Kay Turner 1986Paperback, 48 pagesRead more
Publisher: INTAR Latin American Gallery