Our America Audio Podcast — Elizabeth Broun, “Mis Hermanos” by Jesse Trevino
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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, museum director Elizabeth Broun discusses Mis Hermanos by Jesse Treviño
I’m particularly struck by the fact that he painted this in 1976 with his left hand. It seems that he was born in Monterrey, Mexico. He came with his family when he was four years old to live in San Antonio. He loved art and was in art school when he got a draft notice in 1966. You know, he could have gone to Paris. He could have left the country rather than report for duty, but he felt an obligation to serve and he went off to the Mekong Delta, where he encountered a horrible booby trap, and eventually his right arm, which was his painting arm, had to be amputated, so he taught himself to paint with his left hand. He says that when he was near death, he promised himself that if he recovered, he would paint the most important things in his world: his family, his home, his friends, and his community. So here he is just a few years later with this beautiful, large painting that he was able to accomplish after great difficulty and much pain, and yet you feel none of that in this painting. It feels joyful, it feels warm, it doesn’t feel angry or upset. It just feels like a band of brothers getting together on an afternoon in the sun, and it makes me feel both happy and sad at the same time to think of all that he’s had to overcome but all the accomplishment he managed despite that.