The idea for this mural came to me when I got a call to artists from SPARC asking for mural proposals. The name of the project was Neighborhood Pride and, I decided to adhere closely to these concepts: neighborhood and pride. My neighborhood at the time was Hollywood, home to a sizeable Mexican community, so I thought it appropriate to honor this otherwise unacknowledged ethnic group, and at the same time salute the idea of the film Mecca. By celebrating Dolores Del Río, one of filmdom’s most enduring beauties, I covered both concepts. Additionally I wanted to root my tribute in Southern California by using visual art and other references that are particular to this land.

I decided to give to the neighborhood a public picture that would be undeniably Mexican, because, in spite of the fact that a large percentage of Hollywood’s present population are immigrants from or trace their origins to México or other Latin American countries, this community rarely gets acknowledged in mainstream media. This way Hollywood denizens would see, at least on this wall, a portrait of heroic dimensions of someone that could be identified as a neighbor, a relative, perhaps a friend.

The name Hollywood conjures up movie making, and to me it evokes more the past than the present. So I cast a fond look to that reputed golden era for inspiration. At the same time that I wanted to memorialize Hollywood’s superannuated splendor I also wanted to bring to the fore a little of the contributions of Mexicans to the dream machine. Spurring my interest in choosing a Hollywood Mexican as the subject matter is the dearth of information in mainstream media as regards to the participation of Mexicans in Hollywood cinema, an appalling omission akin to a well planned boycott. Before I started this project, I vaguely knew that Dolores Del Río had made movies in Hollywood, but with a little research I found a wealth of information. She was a star of the first order, a household name, at one point the highest paid entertainer, plus she’s also credited by many as having introduced glamour to the silver screen.

Although Los Angeles, and environs, is widely known as the center of movie making and other forms of what is termed popular culture — industrially manufactured art for mass consumption — information on the visual arts from this part of the world is not as forthcoming. We can chalk this up to elitist attitudes that divide art into high and low brow. Whatever is widely appreciated by the masses is deemed low, whatever is consecrated by the high priests of corporate art is decreed lofty. A lowly art form that originated in Southern California, roughly at the same time that Hollywood reached its peak, was the orange crate label art. It was art without pretensions, for the purpose of adorning the crates to ship that fruit. This art expression was not created to be worshiped in the sterile halls of the cognoscenti, where art is revered as a high-end consumer product. These labels, often relying on exaggerated perspective, unabashedly trumpeted a sunny and colorful picture of pastoral bliss in a citrus paradise under a benign open sky. Some of these elements can easily be discerned in the composition of my mural. In adjusting my design to the conditions of the wall, I opted for a horizontal rectangle, a format that looks more like paper money than the square of the original orange crate labels.

Aware that in early Hollywood women superstars were called goddesses, a reference to the divine was in order, so I integrated elements reminiscent of México’s devotional retablo, a folk art ex-voto, and of the popular illustrations of the supposed apparitions of Mary, the mother of Jesus, under the alias of Guadalupe. Dominating the composition in the center is a large black and white head shot of the star, and in each corner an oval with scenes from four of her movies: What Price Glory?, 1926; Flying Down to Rio, 1933; María Candelaria, 1943; and The Fugitive, 1947. Her portrait and the oval scenes are in black and white contrasting sharply with the sunset colors of the background that go from fiery oranges to a passionate red to a dusky burgundy. Warmly touched by the sky in the background is the snow-covered silhouette of Ixtaccíhuatl -- the Sleeping Woman -- a dormant volcano that has been the subject of myth and legend since time immemorial. Although a majestic monument of nature, the only way I’ve known it has been through culture, namely patriotic school readings and kitschy calendar illustrations. As an offering to this celluloid deity the sides and the center foreground were festooned with flowers. Most of these flowers are native to southern California or to the southwestern deserts as an allusion to this land and to Flor silvestre [Wild Flower] (1942), her first movie after she left Hollywood. Other flowers that hint at movie titles are Bird of Paradise (1932) and Bugambilia (1944.) The two pairs of calla lilies, after Imogen Cunningham, are a reference to the avant garde of the twenties and thirties in its San Francisco expression. I strived to render the flowers as realistically as my abilities permitted, however I took the liberty of altering their comparable dimensions for dramatic effect. Notwithstanding the predominant use of vibrant colors in the celebratory tone of this mural, I also imbued the shadows with an tinge of gloom, a feeling not found in the commercial sources I used as my point of departure.

In painting this mural to honor Dolores Del Río and her accomplishments I was inspired by my neighbors, my neighborhood, and the original desert landscape where this city was planted. This piece is informed of the kitsch and folk art of my original culture in addition to that of local vintage. I hope that it be seen as my humble homage to those who have preceded me, and those who will follow, in making Hollywood a center of creativity.

The Dolores Del Río mural was painted in the spring of 1990 and dedicated July 13 of the same year. Location: Northeast corner of Hollywood Blvd and Hudson Ave in Hollywood.