Artist

Carlos A. Cortéz

born Milwaukee, WI 1923-died Chicago, IL 2005
Also known as
  • Carlos Alfredo Cortéz
  • Carlos Alfredo Koyokuikatl Cortéz
  • Carlos Cortez
Born
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States
Died
Chicago, Illinois, United States
Active in
  • Chicago, Illinois, United States
Nationalities
  • American
Biography

Graphic artist, born in 1923 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Cortéz currently lives in Chicago, where he has been active with the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) since the end of World War II. His dedication to the IWW, one of the first labor organizations to organize Mexican workers in the southwestern United States, is reflected in Cortéz's numerous articles, short stories, poems, book reviews, photographs, comic strips, and linoleum-cut illustrations published over the years in the union's newspaper.

Latino Art and Culture Bilingual Study Guide (Washington, D.C.: National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, 1996)

Exhibitions

Media - 2011.12 - SAAM-2011.12_1 - 77591
Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art
October 24, 2013–March 2, 2014
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art presents the rich and varied contributions of Latino artists in the United States since the mid-twentieth century, when the concept of a collective Latino identity began to emerge. The exhibition is drawn entirely from the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s pioneering collection of Latino art. It explores how Latino artists shaped the artistic movements of their day and recalibrated key themes in American art and culture.
Media - 2012.53.1 - SAAM-2012.53.1_1 - 82036
¡Printing the Revolution! The Rise and Impact of Chicano Graphics, 1965 to Now
November 20, 2020–August 8, 2021
Smithsonian American Art Museum
In the 1960s, activist Chicano artists forged a remarkable history of printmaking that remains vital today. Many artists came of age during the civil rights, labor, anti-war, feminist and LGBTQ+ movements and channeled the period’s social activism into assertive aesthetic statements that announced a new political and cultural consciousness among people of Mexican descent in the United States. ¡Printing the Revolution! explores the rise of Chicano graphics within these early social movements and the ways in which Chicanx artists since then have advanced innovative printmaking practices attuned to social justice.

Related Posts

A painting of a skull.
Chicano GraphicsFrom the Collection
10/27/2022
Traditions and Change: The Transformation of Día de los Muertos in the United States
Chicano artists and activists blended cultural and visual traditions to create modern Day of the Dead celebrations in the U.S.
Headshot of woman with black hair
Rebekah Mejorado
Public Relations Specialist