18 Facts About Carlos Almaraz

Carlos D Almaraz was a Mexican-American artist and a pioneer of the Chicano art movement.

Carlos Almaraz's family moved when he was a young child, settling in Chicago, Illinois, where his father owned a restaurant for five years and worked in Gary steel mills for another four.

When Carlos Almaraz was age nine, his family moved to Los Angeles on a doctor's recommendation that his father seek a warm climate to assuage his rheumatism, and as a result of family problems, first settling in Wilmington, later moving to the then-rural Chatsworth, where they lived in communal housing with other Mexicans.

Carlos Almaraz graduated from Garfield High School in 1959 and attended Los Angeles City College, studying under David Ramirez, and took summer classes at Loyola Marymount University.

Carlos Almaraz attended California State University, Los Angeles, where he befriended Frank Romero.

Carlos Almaraz became discouraged by the structure of the art department at CalState LA.

Carlos Almaraz began attending night courses at the Otis College of Art and Design, studying under Joe Mugnaini.

Carlos Almaraz studied arts at University of California, Los Angeles.

In 1965, Carlos Almaraz moved to New York City, with Dan Guerrero, the son of Lalo Guerrero.

Carlos Almaraz left after six months to take advantage of a scholarship offered him by Otis Art Institute.

Carlos Almaraz returned to New York and lived there from 1966 to 1969, where he struggled as a painter in the middle of the New Wave movements of the era.

Carlos Almaraz transformed Echo Park into an Island of Cythera, from which one never has to disembark.

On November 12,1978, Carlos Almaraz wrote "Because love is not found in Echo Park, I'll go where it is found".

Six Carlos Almaraz works are in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, several are in the Cheech Marin Center for Arts and Culture in Riverside, CA, and one is in the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Carlos Almaraz was public about being queer, and it was documented in his journals.

Carlos Almaraz died on December 11,1989, of AIDS-related causes at the Sherman Oaks Community Hospital, in Sherman Oaks neighborhood of Los Angeles.

Carlos Almaraz is remembered as an artist who used his talent to bring critical attention to the early Chicano Art Movement, as well as a supporter of Cesar Chavez and the UFW.

Almaraz was the subject of am 85 minute documentary, Carlos Almaraz: Playing With Fire, which was directed by his widow Elsa Flores Almaraz, and actor and filmmaker Richard Montoya.