


Frank Romero USA, b. 1941
Indiana Street Mural, Color Cartoon, Across the L.A. River, 1970
Gouache on paper
17.375 x 22.5 in
44.1 x 57.1 cm
44.1 x 57.1 cm
Further images
In 1970 as part of a community betterment program, the city of Los Angeles worked with Carlos Almaraz to commission ten artists to create murals across East Los Angeles using...
In 1970 as part of a community betterment program, the city of Los Angeles worked with Carlos Almaraz to commission ten artists to create murals across East Los Angeles using federal tax dollars. Among the ten commissioned was Frank Romero, Almaraz’s future Los Four collaborator. For his mural Romero wanted to depict a California where the land meets the ocean as if the first is falling into the latter, a precursor to the grim realities of today. What resulted on a wall of a parking lot on Indiana Street was a stunning and colorful California landscape where the only indication of something awry is an angel flying up above. All that is known to exist of this Chicano mural are a number of sketches, of which this is an important early survivor of what would become a mural renaissance in East Los Angeles.
Provenance
Frank Romero StudioLiterature
“De aquí y de allá: Frank Romero, A Survey,” Meer, December 11, 2024. (illustrated)Exhibition catalogue, De aquí y de allá: Frank Romero, A Survey, Ruiz-Healy Art: New York / San Antonio, 2024 (illustrated)