Alberto Valdés (painter)

Alberto Valdés
Born	28 March 1918 El Paso, Texas
Died	10 May 1998 (aged 80) Los Angeles, California
Nationality	American
Education	self-taught
Known for	figurative abstract painting

Alberto Valdés, Untitled, ca. 1965, mixed media on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum

Alberto Valdés, Perro Cósmico for Summer, ca. 1981, acrylic on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum

Alberto Valdés (1918–1998) was a Mexican-American artist, who relished experimentation, excelled at abstraction, and was fearless in his love with the very act of painting.

Life

Early life and education

Alberto Valdés was born in El Paso, Texas. His mother Lydia Valdés and father Alberto R. Valdés Sr., a composer and conductor of the Mexico City Philharmonic Orchestra, had come to the US to escape the Mexican Revolution. Valdés and his younger brother Armand were raised in the Boyle Heights neighborhood in East Los Angeles that was predominantly inhabited by Mexican and Italian families.

Alberto Valdés, Untitled, ca. 1960, acrylic on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum

At a young age, Valdés exhibited a natural ability for the fine arts. After graduating from Lincoln High School in 1936, he received a scholarship to attend Harper's School of Art in Los Angeles. The award letter to the school proclaimed, “His work is outstanding.... You should be proud of Mr. Valdés, for we have great faith in his ability.”

In his 20s Valdés worked as a commercial artist, specializing in magazine advertisements, outdoor billboards and orange-crate labels.

WWII

From 1941 to 1945, Valdés served in the United States Army and was a communication chief in the European theater during World War II. He was awarded the Good Conduct Medal, American Campaign Medal and European African Middle Eastern Campaign Medal.

Post WWII

Upon his return he found work at MGM Studios as an art designer on contract. He designed movie sets until he retired in the early 1960s.

Later years

Starting in the 1960s, Valdés devoted himself primarily to his art, only working sporadically to support himself. He did not seek a public artistic career but instead chose to paint for the sheer joy of it.

As his ideas for painting increased, Valdés switched from oil to acrylic to minimize the drying time. A consummate experimenter, he worked in series, painting several paintings at the same time until he was ready to move on to another artistic style or genre.  

Valdés forged an isolated career outside of the established networks of Californian and Chicano art. He did not see the need for outside—personal or professional—approval and refused to exhibit or sell any of his artwork.

Influences

A self-taught artist, Alberto Valdés built an extensive library of art books and magazines, which nurtured his interest in international art movements. He felt a deep connection to pre-Columbian and modern Mexican art that was born out of cultural pride and self-directed study. His interest in abstraction aligned him with Rufino Tamayo, Ricardo Martinez. Other masters, whose work he admired, were Caravaggio, Joan Miró, Pablo Picasso and Paul Klee.

"Mi arte es me vida"

Valdés claimed to be spiritually moved by the mere execution of his work. He frequently said, “Mi arte es mi vida” (My art is my life).

He died in his home in Silver Lake, Los Angeles, on May 10, 1998, leaving behind a body of work, consisting of hundreds of paintings and drawings.

Posthumous Group Exhibitions

• 2011-2012 "Art Along the Hyphen: The Mexican American Generation", Autry National Center, Los Angeles. Only after Alberto Valdés' death did the public have a chance to see his artwork. Eighteen of his paintings were selected for this exhibition, which was organized by the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center and curated by Chon Noriega and Terezita Romo. It was part of the "Pacific Standard Time: Art in Los Angeles, 1945-1980" multy-year initiative of the Getty Foundation, which featured exhibitions, concerts and performances centered on hometown artists who put Southern California on the cultural map after World War II. Catalogue: L.A. Xicano
• 2014-2017 "Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art", Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC, Oct 2013 – Mar 2014. Curated by E. Carmen Ramos. The exhibition presented works by 72 leading modern and contemporary artists and went on tour. Catalogue Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art was written by Carmen Ramos (Author) and Tomas Ybarra-Frausto (Introduction).
  • 2014 Patricia and Phillip Frost Art Museum at Florida International University Miami, FL
  • 2015 Crocker Art Museum Sacramento, CA
  • 2015 Utah Museum of Fine Arts Salt Lake City, UT
  • 2016 Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts Little Rock, AZ
  • 2016 Delaware Art Museum Wilmington, DE
  • 2016 Allentown Art Museum Allentown, PA
  • 2017 Museum of Fine Arts St. Petersburg, FL
  • 2017 Hunter Museum of American Art Chattanooga, TN

Literature

• UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center Press: L.A. Xicano, edited by Chon A. Noriega, Terezita Romo, and Pilar Tompkins Rivas, 2011
• D Giles Ltd.: Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art, By Carmen Ramos, Tomas Ybarra-Frausto (Introduction by), 2014

Public collections

• The Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC
• Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art, Logan, UT

Further reading / external links

• Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM), Alberto Valdés
• UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center List of Chicana/o Artists
• Blue Rain Gallery, Alberto Valdés
• Program note for Alberto Valdés exhibition
• Field of moving colors, a poem about Alberto Valdés' painting by Tino Villanueva, published in Poetry, March 2016