OBIT: Emigdio Vasquez, 'Godfather of Chicano Art'

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Emigdio Vasquez, a painter and muralist known as “the godfather of Chicano art,” has died of pneumonia at an assisted living home in Newport Beach. He was 75.

“I think he will be remembered as someone who cared about the working class,” his daughter, Rosemary Vasquez-Tuthill, told the Orange County Register in a reference to her father’s frequent art subjects. “He captured the community and the grittiness of life.”

Vasquez, who died on Saturday, started by making his own comic books as a child and turned to oil painting in the late 1950s, according to the Register. He was creating murals about a decade later and ultimately painted 22 throughout Orange County in such locations as Cal State Fullerton, the Fullerton Museum, Anaheim City Hall, the wall of an Anaheim market,and Santa Ana College. He is also credited for more than 400 paintings.

One of his most recognized murals showcases “The Legacy of Cesar Chavez.” It is displayed in the lobby of a building at Santa Ana College.

“I consider him the Diego Rivera of the modern age. He was the godfather of Chicano art,” fellow artist Abram Moya Jr. of La Habra told the Register. “He is one of the heroes of Orange County.”

In recent years, his family has defended his work as a depiction of cultural and iconic pride amid outcry from some Orange County city officials who saw it as validation of gang lifestyle, the Register reported.

Born in 1939 in Jerome, Arizona, Vasquez and his family came to Orange County in the early 1940s. He attended Mater Dei High School, then Orange High, and also attended Santa Ana College and Cal State Fullerton.

In 2013, Vasquez, who suffered from Alzheimer’s disease, became the first Orange County resident to be presented with a Maestro award from the Latino Arts Network, an association of Latino museums and cultural centers partnered with the California Arts Council, the Register reported. The award recognizes unsung heroes, artists and cultural workers.

Vasquez is survived by six children, four brothers and one sister. His wife, Rosie, died in 2011.

--City News Service

PHOTO Patch file photo.