🔥 Important Mexican Chicano Modern Mural Oil Painting, Charles Felix 1977 For Sale

This is a Rare andImportant Mexican Chicano Modern Mural Oil Painting on canvas, by an influential founding father of the Chicano Art Movement in California, Charles "Cat" W. Felix, Jr. (1944 - 1990.) This piece depicts a traditional Aztec - Mayan inspired Goddess, with heavy Pre-Columbian symbolism. She manually milks one breast with a set of pincers, and squats atop a large turtle, with a long snake like Quetzalcoatl type creature underneath it. Her nose jewelry is a stylized Mexican eagle, which is a prominent symbol of the UFW. This painting is similar to his 1970's Untitled work, referred to by scholars asEl Tajin, a mural at the Estrada Courts in Monterey Park, East Los Angeles, California. Signed with the artist's signature "CW Felix," and dated "1977" in the lower left corner. Approximately 29 3/4 x 35 3/4 inches (including frame.) Actual artwork is approximately 24 x 30 inches. Very good condition for age and storage, with some light scuffing and edge wear to the original period wooden frame (please see photos.) Acquired from an old estate collection in Los Angeles County, California. Priced to Sell. You will not find another. Felix's public murals are visible across California, including the Estrada Courts, Chicano Park, and other important locations across the State. If you like what you see, I encourage you to make an Offer. Please check out my other listings for more wonderful and unique artworks!
About the Artist:
Charles Felix, Jr.Born:1944 - East Los Angeles, California
Died:1990 - Pico Rivera, CaliforniaKnown for:Mural painting, nail-relief art
Charles W. Felix, Jr. (1944 - 1990) was active/lived in California.Charles Felix Jr is known for Mural painting, nail-relief art.Charles W. “Cat” Felix was implemental in the creation of the Estrada Court murals and was a prominent aspect of the Chicano mural movement in the 70’s. He was a self-taught artist who also did nail relief artworks. (Robin K. Dunitz,Street Gallery, Guide to over 1000 Los Angeles Murals)
Charles W. Felix Jr., 46; Created Murals in Los Angeles

Charles W. (Cat) Felix Jr., an artist who came out of the East Los Angeles housing projects to create some of the city’s most spectacular murals, has died at his Pico Rivera home at age 46.

His brother, Leonard, said he died Tuesday of a heart attack after surgery to remove a brain tumor.

Best known as one of the lead artists for the Estrada Court murals on Olympic Boulevard between Grande Vista Avenue and Lorena Street, Felix most recently had been involved in nail-relief art, in which the heads of nails are used to make impressions.

That work ranged from portraits of Aztec gods and warriors to horses, his brother said.

Raised in East Los Angeles, Felix was one of the first artists involved in the Estrada Court murals, where neighbors and artists alike participated. The ongoing project, started in 1973, was funded by the city and depicts Chicano life and culture.

Felix is survived by his wife, Sherry, a son, two brothers, two sisters and his mother.

Charles W. Felix "Cat" and Norma Montoya, a muralist team based in Los Angeles, shared a struggle in common with San Diego's Logan Heights community and the local muralists Victor Ochoa and Mario Torero in the early 1970's. Together they sought to embolden their communities through public art and organized a mural exchange between San Diego and Boyle Heights. While Cat and Norma have completed numerous murals in the Estrada Courts Mural Movement, this pillar is a special gift to the Barrio Logan community.This Chicano Park freeway pillar is entitled "Ninos Del Mundo" or "Children of the World."

At first glance, the mural is distinctive for its lively colors, playful shapes and graphic impact. Artist's Charles W. Felix and Norma Montoya shared the same philosophy: to paint with optimism, illuminating the beauty of childlike wonder and fantasy despite life's obstacles. On the Pillar you will see that among the many colored books of knowledge the Artist's arm reaches out to paint a polycephalous Quetzalcoatl, the "feathered serpent"; a Mesoamerican deity who is the source for art, poetry, and all knowledge. Below, nature takes the form of mushrooms growing around bold upturned arrows signifying higher consciousness. The uplifting moral for the heavy-hearted is that the power of creativity can help us achieve a superior way of life that is beautiful and wise.

City of San Diego, CA, Historical Resources Board

Estrada Courts is well known for its murals,which reflect the Chucano barrio culture and traditions of the area.

“Chicano murals look the way they do, because the authors concentrate not only on individual murals but on mural clusters and establish a dialogic interplay of form, content, and location among them". The iconography in the mural clusters emerges from the sociohistorical context not only of the space where they are painted but also of the aesthetic norms of specific barrio cultures over an extended period of time.”[4]

The murals include:

• Dream Worldby Norma Montoya (1974)
• Innocenceby Norma Montoya (1975)
• Fishes of the Futureby Norma Montoya (1976)
• Mural of Childrenby Charles Felix
• Two Flagsby Sonny Ramirez (1973), located at 1364-6 Grande Vista Ave at Olympic
• In Memory of a Home Boyby Daniel Martinez (1973), located at 3328 Hunter Street
• Dreams of Flightby David Botello(1973-78, repainted in 1996), located at 3441 Olympic Boulevard
• The Sun Bathersby Gil Hernandez (1973), located at 3287 Olympic Boulevard
• The Artistby Daniel Haro (1973)
• Moratorium - The Black and White Muralby Willie Herronand Gronk (1973).
• La Fiestaby Roberto Chavezwith students from East Los Angeles College, located at 3370-3372 1/2 Hunter Street, Los Angeles, CA 90023. (1973)
• We Are Not a Minorityby El Congreso de Artistas Cosmicos de las Americas de San Diego (Mario Torero, Rocky, El Lion, Zade) (1978, repainted in 1996). The mural reads on the upper left corner: “In memoriam to the Guerrillero Heroico, el Doctor Che. Día del Rebelde Internacional XI aniversario Oct. 8th, 1978.” This mural can be seen in the music videos for "To Live & Die in L.A." by Tupac Shakurand "Where Is The Love"by The Black Eyed Peas.

The muralsDreams of Flight,Untitledby Daniel Haro (1983), andUntitledby Steve Delgado (1973) are featured prominently in an episode of the television show Robbery Homicide Division - City of Strivers,from November 8, 2002.

A BOYLE HEIGHTS HOUSING PROJECT’S MURALS ARE TIME CAPSULES OF CHICANO ART

Artist David Botello painted his first mural when he was in third grade. It was a collaborative effort with another third grader, Wayne Healy. Together they covered a chalkboard-sized piece of butcher paper with an elaborate prehistoric landscape, complete with dinosaurs and volcanoes.

The occasion was an East Los Angeles elementary school open house in the 1950s. “We’re studying dinosaurs,” Botello recalls his teacher saying, “and I want you to put your heart out there and do something for the parents to see.” Botello still speaks with pride about the care and effort he and Healy put into that Jurassic masterpiece.

Construction of the 710 freeway forced Botello’s family to move out of their home and relocate to a different school district, so Botello and Healy lost touch. Decades later they reconnected at an art show on L.A.'s Westside. “Wayne didn’t know who I was because I had long hair and a beard and I wore glasses,” Botello recalls. “But his face, I tell you, he looked exactly the same.”

Picking up where they had left off so many years before, Botello and Healy began collaborating as muralists under the moniker East Los Streetscapers.

Their bold artistic projects brighten street corners and storefronts across L.A.'s Eastside to this day.

The East Los Streetscapers represent just two of many Chicano artists who have been creating large-scale, often politically charged murals on the Eastside since the 1960s. Now, some 40 years after they were painted, the neighborhood’s vast collection of murals is getting much-deserved attention thanks to Give Me Life: Iconography and Identity in East Los Angeles Murals,a beautiful, meticulously researched new book by art historian Holly Barnet-Sanchez and independent scholar Tim Drescher.

“What we wanted to do is to look at the murals first and foremost as monumental works of art,” Barnet-Sanchez explains. “Then through the murals themselves we can learn about the community that created them and that lives with them.”

Give Me Lifeis a fascinating read because of the care and respect with which it examines its subjects and the histories it simultaneously reveals. The area of the Eastside that Barnet-Sanchez and Drescher have isolated as the focus of their study was the center of the development of Chicano culture. It is also a rich artistic source to mine. At Estrada Courts, a large government housing project off Olympic Boulevard, there are more than 90 massive murals to examine, among them David Botello’s first major solo project.

The story of Estrada Courts is revealed vividly inGive Me Lifethrough beautifully reproduced photographs from the 1970s. Today the murals are faded and graffiti has spread across them like rogue vines, creeping up from the ground and gradually invading the art. The murals still make a statement as they exist today, and they're definitely worth viewing — but their impact is muted in their current dilapidated state.

In the opening chapters ofGive Me Life, Barnet-Sanchez and Drescher catalog, map and thoughtfully analyze every mural at Estrada Courts, examining each piece individually and drawing conclusions about their impact as a whole. They write: “Details change from mural to mural, but the overall message is coherent and focused: Respect the ancient past and recent history, appreciate community, consider future possibilities, support labor and activism, embrace myth and religion, and be proud of being of Mexican descent, of being Chicano.”

The story of Estrada Courts’ murals is full of interesting characters. There is Charles “Cat” Felix, a friend of Botello’s who was influential as Estrada Courts’ artist, curator and mediator. During a talk at the Fowler Museum in 2012, Botello described Felix’s role in the community: “He was really talented and fun-loving and he had a lot of homeboy friends and a lot of artist friends, so he bridged that gap. There was no more graffiti at Estrada Courts for a whole generation because the gangs respected his work.”

Felix was barrio-savvy. He wanted to beautify his neighborhood but knew that Estrada Courts' resident gang had to be respected. He straddled two worlds, satisfying both the gang and government officials by encrypting the gang’s tag into artistic, prominently displayed Aztec designs. The graffiti was gone and Mayor Tom Bradley came out to paint a symbolic brushstroke at a celebratory dedication ceremony. At the same time, right in front of government officials’ eyes, there was the gang’s tag, “VNE,” boldly displayed on a street-facing wall at the entrance to Estrada Courts but ingeniously disguised within a mural.