# @gettymuseum on Instagram

- **Type:** Image
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/CUVZfyuPF5-
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/34228930-gettymuseum-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/postThumbnails/4e4fee80e5.jpg
- **Posted:** 2021-09-27T18:00:12.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** Getty (@gettymuseum) — https://gondola.cc/gettymuseum

## Caption

Ricardo Valverde was part of the first wave of Chicanos to be professionally trained in Southern California art schools. Valverde produced photo-based works at a time when exposure and institutional support were not readily available for Chicano photographers. How did he get his start?

Valverde was born in Phoenix, Arizona, one of eleven children in a working-class family. His family later moved to Los Angeles, where he would eventually study with "paraphotographer" Robert Heinecken at ucla.

Valverde examined the work of the masters of modern art photography he admired—Henri Cartier-Bresson, Brassaï, Edward Weston, and Manuel Álvarez Bravo—and realized that he, too, was interested in documentary photography. He gained recognition, particularly within the LA Chicano art world, for the images he made in local neighborhoods while employed as a meter reader by the gas company.

Valverde visited Mexico often and felt a strong connection with its art and traditions. Although he printed many of his portraits and street photographs in black and white in the late 1970s, he returned to selected images in the '90s, reprinting them and adding hand-coloring to reference the surrealist and folk-art traditions prominent in 20th-century Mexican art.

Images:
1. Whittier Blvd, 1979, Ricardo Valverde. The J. Paul Getty Museum. © Esperanza Valverde
2. Loteria de Muertos, negative 1983; print 1993, Ricardo Valverde. The J. Paul Getty Museum. © Esperanza Valverde
3. Downtown L.A (Woman in Los Angeles), 1976, Ricardo Valverde. The J. Paul Getty Museum. © Esperanza Valverde
4. Shop Keeper in Los Angeles, negative 1979; print 1991, Ricardo Valverde. The J. Paul Getty Museum. © Esperanza Valverde

🏷️: #Getty #HispanicHeritageMonth #RicardoValverde #ChicanoArt #ChicanoArtist

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## Tags

getty, chicanoartist, ricardovalverde, hispanicheritagemonth, chicanoart

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