Camas para Sueños

Carmen Lomas Garza, Camas para Sueños, 1985, gouache on paper, sheet: 28 ¹⁄₈ x 20 ¹⁄₂ in. (71.4 x 52.1 cm) sight: 23 x 17 ¹⁄₂ in. (58.4 x 44.3 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase through the Smithsonian Latino Initiatives Pool and the Smithsonian Institution Collections Acquisition Program, 1995.94, © 1985, Carmen Lomas Garza

Artwork Details

Title: Camas para Sueños
Artist: Carmen Lomas Garza
Date: 1985
Location: Not on view
Dimensions: sheet: 28 ¹⁄₈ x 20 ¹⁄₂ in. (71.4 x 52.1 cm) sight: 23 x 17 ¹⁄₂ in. (58.4 x 44.3 cm)
Copyright: © 1985, Carmen Lomas Garza
Credit Line: Museum purchase through the Smithsonian Latino Initiatives Pool and the Smithsonian Institution Collections Acquisition Program
Mediums: gouache
Mediums Description: gouache on paper
Classifications: Painting
Subjects: Landscape — celestial — moon
Landscape — time — night
Figure group — female
State of being — phenomenon — dream
Architecture Exterior — domestic — house
Architecture Exterior — domestic — bedroom
Object Number: 1995.94
Linked Open Data: https://edan.si.edu/saam/id/object/1995.94

Artwork Description

Lomas Garza’s folk-styled works document the lives of Mexican Americans and often portray memories of her own family in South Texas. In Camas para Sueños (Beds for Dreams) the artist and her sister sit on their roof dreaming of becoming artists, while their mother below maintains a traditional home. Lomas Garza’s deceptively straightforward images offer uncommon glimpses of American daily life as it unfolds in many Chicano communities.

Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art, 2013

Las obras de estilo popular de Lomas Garza documentan la vida de los mexicanos americanos, preservando a menudo los recuerdos de su propia familia en el sur de Texas. En Camas para Sueños, la artista y su hermana están sentadas en el techo de su casa soñando en convertirse en artistas, mientras la madre, abajo, mantiene un hogar tradicional. Las imágenes engañosamente sencillas de Lomas Garza dejan entrever como la vida cotidiana estadounidense se desarrolla en muchas de las comunidades chicanas.

Nuestra América: la presencia latina en el arte estadounidense, 2013

Works by this artist (8 items)

View all artworks

Tamalada

Artist

Carmen Lomas Garza

Date1990

color lithograph

Ofreciendo flores

Artist

Carmen Lomas Garza

Date1987

screenprint on paper

Lotería-Tercera Tabla

Artist

Carmen Lomas Garza

Date1972

color etching on paper

Lotería-Primera Tabla

Artist

Carmen Lomas Garza

Date1972

color etching on paper

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This audio podcast series discusses artworks and themes in the exhibition Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. In this episode, director Eizabeth Broun discusses Camas para Sueños by Carmen Lomas Garza.

BETSY BROUN: Hello, I’m Betsy Broun. I’m the Margaret and Terry Stent Director of the Smithsonian American Art Museum. I love this exhibition because it culminates years of effort and lots of excitement as we build what we hope will be one of the truly great collections of Latino art in any museum in America. We’ve had so many dedicated people working for a long time to make this happen. It’s hard to pick just one thing in the exhibition to talk about, but I guess I might pick a beautiful painting by Carmen Lomas Garza called “Camas para Sueños,” or “Beds for Dreams.” It’s actually a gouache on paper, maybe 28 by 20 inches.

For me, it is a kind of emblem of literally the hopes and dreams that animate the Latino community and, actually, immigrant communities everywhere in America. It tells the story of the American promise. It tells a story that is why people want to come here to try to create a better future for themselves, their children, and their families. It shows a simple house and, through a window, we see a mother of a family, and she’s shaking out the spread and making the bed, and up on the roof of the house are the two children lying up in the roof under a nighttime sky and gesturing towards the moon that appears in the clouds. In every way, you see the efforts of the family to create a good home, to provide the environment where their children can thrive, and then you see the children staring into the night sky as they imagine what they want to accomplish and achieve.

It’s an endlessly hopeful image. It seems so current today. It was done in 1985; already these hopes and dreams were paramount within the Latino community. In fact, we have a whole generation called “the Dreamers,” which are named for this phenomenon, and here it is now, roughly thirty years later, and still the same ambitions, desires, wondering what will come of your life, hoping it will be as good as you imagined it could be. To me, it’s just an exquisitely beautiful, simple image that says so much about this generation, about Latino immigration in general, really about all the communities that have come to America hoping for the promise of a better life for themselves and their families.

Exhibitions

Media - 2011.12 - SAAM-2011.12_1 - 77591

Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art

October 25, 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.