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Bato con High School Jacket
Artist:
César A. Martínez
(American, born 1944)
Place made:United States
Date: 1986
Medium: Acrylic on canvas
Dimensions:
64 1/2 x 59 1/2 in. (163.8 x 151.1 cm)
Credit Line: San Antonio Museum of Art, purchased with the Tom Slick Estate Acquisition Fund
Object number: 90.76.1
Copyright: © César A. Martínez
Label Text
“The Chicano Movement was a renaissance in thinking about ourselves and in creating those institutions and images and writings that reflected who we are. They were non-existent at that time, we had nothing to relate to so we had to make it up as we went along. And we did. And that was the road to a deeper understanding of who we are.”
—César A. Martínez
Like a character in a novel, the bato (or “guy”) in this painting is a fictional portrait or type, a composite of memories, real people, and images. Artist Martínez draws inspiration from yearbooks, magazines, and his childhood memories of growing up in Laredo for his paintings of batos and pachucos (members of a zoot-suit sporting Chicano subculture). Martínez was a major figure in the Chicano Art Movement of the late 1970s and 1980s, and his paintings telegraph a specifically South Texas history of art.
(Yinshi Lerman-Tan, 2020)
"I was working with all those physiological types, trying to come up with characters that were very specific but also at the same time very universal to
the Chicano experience."
- César A. Martínez
Loosely based on 1950s photographs found in high school yearbooks, obituaries, and other media sources, Martínez's Bato series presents a colorful cast of fictional characters and stereotypes of the Chicano neighborhood street people, known as "batos" or "pachucos." These characters are inspired by memories from his childhood years in the border town of Laredo, Texas. Seeking to focus solely on the physiognomic characteristics and fashionably hip 1950s attire of his subjects, Martínez adopted a pictorial format that he admired in the work of the late photographer Richard Avedon, presenting the figures from the waist or torso up, staring straight at the viewer. In spite of the fact that the young man in the high school jacket wears sun glasses, his pose and poker-faced expression are directed towards the viewer's space, as if he is about to engage us in conversation. The predominantly white abstraction that serves as a backdrop to the subject, painted in thick brush gestures, reflects Martínez's fondness for the Abstract Expressionist and Color Field painting styles that were popular in the 1950s and 1960s.
(David Rubin, 2007)
—César A. Martínez
Like a character in a novel, the bato (or “guy”) in this painting is a fictional portrait or type, a composite of memories, real people, and images. Artist Martínez draws inspiration from yearbooks, magazines, and his childhood memories of growing up in Laredo for his paintings of batos and pachucos (members of a zoot-suit sporting Chicano subculture). Martínez was a major figure in the Chicano Art Movement of the late 1970s and 1980s, and his paintings telegraph a specifically South Texas history of art.
(Yinshi Lerman-Tan, 2020)
"I was working with all those physiological types, trying to come up with characters that were very specific but also at the same time very universal to
the Chicano experience."
- César A. Martínez
Loosely based on 1950s photographs found in high school yearbooks, obituaries, and other media sources, Martínez's Bato series presents a colorful cast of fictional characters and stereotypes of the Chicano neighborhood street people, known as "batos" or "pachucos." These characters are inspired by memories from his childhood years in the border town of Laredo, Texas. Seeking to focus solely on the physiognomic characteristics and fashionably hip 1950s attire of his subjects, Martínez adopted a pictorial format that he admired in the work of the late photographer Richard Avedon, presenting the figures from the waist or torso up, staring straight at the viewer. In spite of the fact that the young man in the high school jacket wears sun glasses, his pose and poker-faced expression are directed towards the viewer's space, as if he is about to engage us in conversation. The predominantly white abstraction that serves as a backdrop to the subject, painted in thick brush gestures, reflects Martínez's fondness for the Abstract Expressionist and Color Field painting styles that were popular in the 1950s and 1960s.
(David Rubin, 2007)
Not on view
In Collection(s)
The San Antonio Museum of Art is in the process of digitizing its permanent collection. This electronic record was created from historic documentation that does not necessarily reflect SAMA's complete or current knowledge about the object. Review and updating of such records is ongoing.
This resource has been made possible in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities: Exploring the Human Endeavor.
