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Mujeres Muralistas

Las Mujeres Muralistas (“The Muralist Women”) were an all-female Chicana artist collective based in the Mission District in San Francisco in the 1970s. They created a number of public murals throughout the Bay area and are said to have sparked the beginning of the female muralist movement in the US and Mexico. Their murals were colorful and large scale and often focused on themes such as womanhood, culture, beauty, and socio-political change. Patricia Rodriguez, Graciela Carrillo, Consuelo Mendez, and Irene Perez are recognized as the founders and most prominent members of the collective, but other Chicana female artists assisted along the way such as Susan Cerventes, Ester Hernandez, and Miriam Olivo among others.

History

The Mujeres Muralistas got their start in the early 1970s. Patricia Rodriguez and Graciela Carrillo were college students studying at the San Francisco Art Institute. In an interview, Rodriguez recalled being unsatisfied with the education she was receiving at the Institute as it primarily revolved around the minimalist movement. She was a fan of using more color. Eventually she teamed up with Carrillo, and later Mendez and Perez, to form their all female artist group.

At this time, the Mission District was predominantly Latino (around 45% of the neighborhood was Latino according to a 1970 census) and the Muralistas were hugely inspired by the Chicano Movement and the cultures of their community. There were other muralists/muralist groups, such as Los Tres Grandes, working in the Mission District at the time, but they were the first females to step onto the scene. The male artists, like Los Tres Grandes, often painted murals about violence, war, and revolutionary figures, but the Muralistas were not interested in such aggressively political paintings. They focused on portraying their culture and the beauty of Chicana/Latina-American womanhood.

Murals

Latinoamerica (1974)

Their first publicly commissioned mural was called "Latinoamerica", located on Mission Street and 25th Street, and painted for the Mission Model Cities organization. They were tasked with creating a mural that would represent the Latino culture of the area. To accomplish this, they used a lot of symbolism that was relevant to Latinos in their mural, such as a pyramid of cornstalks illustrating the significant role that corn played in the lives of indigenous American peoples.

Para El Mercado (1974)

The Muralistas were recruited to create a mural on the side of Paco's Tacos, a restaurant on the corner of 24th and South Van Ness. A McDonald's had just been built across the street, so the mural on the Paco's Tacos building was an effort to keep the restaurant unique and relevant compared to its new competitor.This mural featured four large women surrounded by an abundance of colorful fruits, animals, and exotic natural landscapes. The group chose to focus the mural around the theme of food and the concept of the Latin American marketplace. The theme felt fitting to them given that the wall mural was located on the side of a restaurant.

Fantasy for Children (1975)

Fantasy for Children is the only mural created by the Muralistas that is still standing and can still be seen today. They were commissioned to make the mural for the 24th Street Minipark. Because it was a space for children, they wanted to use the mural to make the park's environment more friendly and appealing to families so it would be used more. They considered the kind of people that would engage with the space and the final product was extremely colorful and had a lot of symbolism tying back to the Latino culture, such as a female sun acting as a sort of Mother Nature type goddess and a woman blowing wind in the top lefthand corner that appeared to be of Mayan decent. Although the mural can still be seen today, it is in need of restoration.

Media Attention

The painting of this mural garnered media attention, and the Mujeres Muralistas were interviewed for newspapers, radio, and television. As a result of this publicity, many more women wanted to join the Mujeres and the group began to grow.