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Born and raised in East Los Angeles, Judithe Hernández became one of the artists in the vanguard of the Chicano Art and Los Angeles Mural Movement of the 1960's and 70's and is regarded as an important visual artist of the period. She was the only female member of the seminal and influential East Los Angeles artist collective "Los Four". The group also included the late well-known California painter, Carlos Almaraz, whom she met when they both attended graduate school at Otis Art Institute.
 
"It is safe to say that this grouping of artists, known collectively as Los Four, “legitimized” Chicano art in the Anglo American art world and inspired the younger Chicanada to forge ahead with a school of art that would come to be known as Chicano Art. Today, Frank Romero, Carlos Almaraz, Gilbert Lujan, Judithe Hernández, and John Valadez represent a group of Chicano artists that have obtained international respect and are admired for producing original and exceptional bodies of work throughout their artistic careers. Los Four opened the commercial door to all in the Chicano art world."  Reflection on the Chicano Art Movimiento: A Primer by Armando Vazquez.

She has exhibited extensively in the United States, Europe, and Mexico, including the ground-breaking first exhibition of contemporary Chicano Art in Europe: Le Démon des AngesHer public works include the Los Angeles Bicentennial Mural (1981). It was the only mural commissioned by the Los Angeles Bicentennial Committee to officially commemorate the 200th anniversary of the city's founding in 1781. From its site within the El Pueblo State Historical Park, the 3-story mural, Recuredos de Ayer, Sueños de Mañana, overlooked the downtown area for nearly 20 years. In contrast to her public art, her studio work has always been pastel on paper. The lush color and haunting imagery of the work prompted one art critic to compare it to two legendary artists, saying it was a unique and "beautiful blend of Rivera and Rousseau".
 
Committed to the education of the next generation of Latinos, she spent 30 years teaching, lecturing, and in college administration at several major universities in California and Illinois, including: California State University Long Beach (where she was an Assistant Professor in the Chicano Studies Department); the University of California at Santa Barbara, Occidental College; the University of Illinois at Chicago; Rush University; and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. In 1984 she and her husband, graphic designer Morton Neikrug relocated to Chicago. They share their loft, located in a historic buidling in the venerable Bronzeville neighborhood with their daughter Ariel. Judithe maintains a busy exhibition schedule and is currently working toward a major solo exhibiton in the Spring 2010 at the National Museum of Mexican Art in Chicago.
 

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

1983 

Cayman Gallery, New York
1980 

A Decade of a Woman's Work

Solart Gallery, San Diego, CA
1979 

Virgen, Madre, Mujer: Imágenes de la Mujer Chicana. Casa de la Raza, Santa Bárbara, CA
1978 

Mi Arte, Mi Raza

Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery,

SELECTED PUBLIC / PRIVATE COLLECTIONS
 

The Craft and Folk Art Museum

The Latino Museum of History, Art, & Culture

The Max Factor Collection

The Otis College of Art and Design Collection

The Radio Bilingüe Collection
The State of California Collection

The United Farm Workers Union
The University of California at Santa Barbara - Chicano Studies Department

The University of California at Los Angeles- Chicano Studies Research Center

______

 

Susan Alexander

Carlos & Elsa Almaraz
Lawrence & Isabel Bischop

David & Lupe Botello

Charlene & Charles Boxenbaum

Fernando de Necochea

Emery Dowell

Abe & Lynn Goldsmith

Wayne Alaniz Healy

Jaime & Mary Hernández

Francisco Jimenez

Howard & Maria Kim

Archie Nedelman

Lawrence & Marguerite Neikrug
Joe D. Rodriguez, Sr.

Frank & Sharon Romero

Oscar Sanchez

Frederick Schwarts
Hrair Shekerjian

Stanley & Jacquelyn Wilson
Edith Wyle


HONORS AWARDS

 

2007 

Otis College of Art and Design.

Designated Outstanding Alumni
2002 

Smithsonian Institution, Archives of American Artists. Oral biography added to archives.

1983 

University of California at Berkeley. Honored as one of California's 500 Hispanic Women Leaders
1980 

Comision Femenil Mexicana Nacional.

Honored for Achievement in the Fine Arts.

 

PUBLIC ART COMMISSIONS

 

1982 

Recuerdos de Ayer....Sueños de Mañana, City of Los Angeles Bicentennial Mural. Commissioned by the Los Angeles Bicentennial Committee. El Pueblo State Historical Park. Demolished 2001

1981 

Sueños Oaxaqueños

Mural on canvas. Commissioned by  the Craft and Folk Art Museum, Los Angeles 

1974 

El Teatro de la Vida, Century Playhouse Theater. Inner City Mural Program. Commissioned by the County of Los Angeles and funded by the National Endowment of the Art (Catalog published)

 

PUBLIC ART

1977 

Homenaje a Las Chicanas de Áztlan, Assisted by Carlos Almaraz. Ramona Gardens Housing Project East Los Angeles, CA
La Adelita. Assisted Carlos Almaraz. Ramona Garden Housing Project, East Los Angeles, CA

Los Four por El Pueblo. Temporary mural California State University Los Angeles

1976 

The Great Wall of Los Angeles Mural, Los Angeles Flood Control Channel Van Nuys, California. Designed "Early California" (4th section of the first phase of the Great Wall)
El Mundo del Barrio Sotel, Stoner Recreation Center, Los Angeles. Restored in 1997 by Alma Lopez. Demolished in 2002.
1975 

United Farmer Workers Mural, Co-designer. Second Annual Constitutional Convention, UFW Headquarters La Paz, CA
Ave 45 Mural. With Frank Romero, Leo Limon, and Carlos Almaraz. Highland Pk, CA

1973 

Los 4 Placa Mural

Portable mural for KCET-PBS. Los Angeles, CA
1968 

The World: Past and Future

First Unitarian Church. Los Angeles, CA

 

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITONS

 

2008

Feminist Ecology: Women and the Earth (Juried). Koehline Museum, Chicago,

11th Annual Chicago Art Open (Juried). 

Catalog published

La Vida Sin Fin - Day of the Dead 2008.

National Museum of Mexican Art

Gallery Artists. Ogilvie/Pertl Gallery

River East Art Center, Chicago

Reforming US: Immigration Through Art

(National juried exhibition). Crown Center Gallery, Loyola University Chicago

Chicago ARTEAhora. River East Art Center, Chicago

Chupacabras! Artists Reinvent the Myth.

National Museum of Mexican Art

 

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS (cont)

 

2004 

Mexican Otis. Otis College of Art Design, Los Angeles
2003 

Reflections of the Soul - Day of the Dead 2003 National Museum of Mexican Art, Chicago, IL

1995 

California Connections. Gallery 1078, Chino, CA

1994 

The Mystical in Art

Carnegie Museum of Art, Oxnard, CA

Los 4: Twenty Years Later

Robert Berman Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

1989-90 

Les Demon des Anges (Catalog published)
First European touring exhibition of contemporary Chicano Art, co-sponsored by Le Centre de Recherche pour le Développment Culturel (Nantes, France) and El Centro de Arte Contporáneo de Santa Mónica (Barcelona, Spain). Exhibition cites included Nante, Lyon, Barcelona, Stockholm, and Brussels.

1989

Works on Paper

California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, CA

The Murals of Aztlan, Street Painters of East Los AngelesUniversity of Houston, Texas
1983 

Faculty Show

California State Polytechnic University. Pomona, CA
1982 

Califas on Paper, Fondo del Sol, Washington, D.C.
1981 

The Murals of Aztlan

Craft and Folk Art Museum, Los Angeles, CA
1980

Six Chicano Artists

Roberts Gallery, Santa Monica, CA

Chicanindia. Galería Capistrano, Capistrano, CA
1979 

Arte Chicano. Galería Pentagano, Mexico City
1978 

The Aesthetics of Grafitti (Catalog published)

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

1977

Los For por el Pueblo

California State University Los Angeles

Los Four Banners and Paper

Mount San Antonio College, Walnut Grove, CA

Los Four en Sacra

California State University Sacramento

1976 

In Search of Four Women...Four Cultures

California Institute of Technology, Baxter Gallery (Catalog published)
Arte Picante

Mandeville Gallery, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA
Las Chicanas. Mechicano Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
Las Chicanas: Venas de la Mujer

The Women's Building, Los Angeles, CA
1975 

Los Four (Catalog published)

Oakland Museum of Art, Oakland, CA

Imagination (Inaugural Exhibition). Los Angeles Institute of Contemporary Art
1974 

Fantasy, the Dark and Light Side

Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Los Four en Fresno

California State University at Fresno. Fresno, CA

Los Four en Longo

Long Beach Museum of Art (Catalog published)
Los Four. Self-Help Graphics, East Los Angeles, CA
Los 4.
University of California at Santa Barbara

1973 

Point Gallery, Venice, CA

 

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY / MEDIA

 

Walls of Empowerment - Chicana/o Indigenist Murals of California, Guisela LaTorre, University of Texas Press, 2008

AZTLAN: A Journal of Chicano Studies

Cover illustration and essay, "A View of Chicano Art by an Artist-in-Progress", Fall 2008 issue. Published by the Chicano Studies Research Center, UCLA

Research in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change. Patrick G. Coy, Elsevier Science and Technology Books, 2007
Latinas in the United States: A Historical Encyclopedia. Vicky Ruiz, Virginia Sanchez Korrol, Indiana University Press, 2006
Self Help Graphics & Art: Art in the Heart of East Los Angeles. K. Guzman & C. Gunckel, UCLA Chicano Studies Research Press, 2005

Dimensions of the Americas: Art and Social Change in Latin America and the United States. S. Goldman, University of Chicago Press, 1995
Signs from the Heart: California Chicano Murals

Eva Sperling Cockcroft, University of New Mexico Press, 1993

Writings About Art

Carol Gold Calo, Prentice Hall College Division, 1993

Street Gallery: Guide to 1000 Murals in Los Angeles County. Robin Dunitz, RJD Enterprises, 1992

Chicano Art: Resistance and Affirmation, 1965-1985. R. Griswold del Castillo, T. McKenna, Y. Yarbro-Bejerano, University of Arizona Press, 1991

The Big Picture: The Murals of Los Angeles

Stanley Young and Melba Levick, Little, Brown and Company (Inc.), 1988
Wall Art: Megamurals & Supergraphics

Stefan & Betty Merken, Running Press, 1987

American Women Artists

Charlotte Rubinstein, Avon Publications, 1982

Nationally syndicated PBS documentary

"The Murals of Aztlan". A documentary film about the painting of the murals for the Craft and Folk Art Museum exhibition of the "Murals of Aztlan, 1981

Handbook of Painting

Crocker Art Museum, Richard V. West, 1979

Documentary subject on Hispanic professionals

McMillan Publications. 1977

Mur, Mur

Award winning documentary about Chicano muralists by French director Agnes Varda, 1977

Documentary for National German Television

Film documentary on East L.A.mural painters, 1976
Floricanto en Aztlan, Alurista

Alurista's first award winning volume of poetry. Published by the Chicano Studies Center Creative Series, University of California at Los Angeles. 1975
Aztlan Journal of Chicano Studies

University of California at Los Angeles. First illustrator of the journal (1970-1974) and designer of the original journal logo.