CARMEN LOMAS GARZA

Cumpleanos de Lala y Tudi, 1991

Lithograph on paper

Collection Mills College Art Museum, Gift of Mrs. John C. Sigourney [Mary Singleton], BA 1949 in Honor of Dr. Georgiana Melvin, Dr. Francis Herrick, Dr. Elizabeth Pope, Dr. Alfred Neumeyer, and Mr. Sasha Lieberman, By Exchange, 1994.13

Carmen Lomas Garza was born and raised in Texas near the Mexican-United States border and arrived in San Francisco in 1976. She is renowned for her narrative scenes of Chicanx/Mexican traditions. She has stated that the narrative nature of her images not only creates a sense of familiarity for Chicanx viewers, but also creates dialogue and teaches those who may be unfamiliar with the scenes she depicts. The San Francisco Bay Area has long been a cultural center for Latinx people. As of the 2010 Census, the Hispanic or Latino community makes up 23.5% of the Bay Area’s population.

In Cumpleanos de Lala y Tudi, Lomas Garza paints a narrative scene of a birthday celebration. Family and friends of various generations are depicted around a young girl in the process of hitting a pinata. While this work does not explicitly state what geographic location this image depicts, its universality allows an interpretation of the scene that can easily take place in the Bay Area.

Janin Escobedo-Garcia