Playing with Fire: Paintings by Carlos Almaraz

by Howard N. Fox, Elsa Flores Almaraz (Contributor), Maya Almaraz (Contributor)

This book celebrates Carlos Almaraz, one of the most influential Los Angeles artists of the 1970s and 1980s. Playing with Paintings by Carlos Almaraz is the first full length monograph devoted to an artist known for both his politically engaged cultural production as well as his vibrant, highly sought-after studio art, particularly his scenes of car crashes and pastoral depictions of L.A.’s Echo Park. Among the leading figures whose artistic, cultural, and political motivations catalyzed the Chicano Art movement in the 1970s, Almaraz began his career with works for the United Farm Workers and cofounded the important artists collective Los Four. Although he saw himself as an activist, Almaraz straddled multiple—and often contradictory—identities that drew from divergent cultures and approaches, and his work became less overtly political and more personal, psychological, dreamlike, and even mystical as he evolved artistically. The book features more than 60 works, mostly from the late 1970s through 1989, the year of the artist’s untimely death at age 48, as well as selections from his journals and recollections from numerous colleagues and friends who knew him throughout his career.

Genres: Art

148 pages, Hardcover

Published August 11, 2017

Reviews

[Grady · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the finest artist monographs!

For those of us who knew and admired and promoted the art of the brilliant painter Carlos Almaraz this book is as fine a tribute to an important artist of the last century as has been created to date. Howard N. Fox is the author and curator for this richly colorful book and in addition to his fine examination of Carlos’ life, inspiration for his work, the unique manner in which he painted and the sensational subject manner he depicted he has added the journals of Carlos and an extended essay by Carlos’ wife – the artist Elsa Flores.

Carlos is very much in the front line of the movement to make Hispanic culture respected and honored in Los Angeles – and the Americas for that matter. His subjects were spaces in Los Angeles – whether the dreamlike night images of Echo Park Lake or the skyscrapers and freeways and car crashes that he brought to brilliant colorful life – but also his passion and obsession with the magically imagined allegories that produced giant creatures that stomped through the city and surroundings. His paintings are wildly imaginative and full of hot color, and thankfully many of his works have been translated into excellent prints that hang handsomely in many homes of art collectors both in Los Angeles and across the country.

Toward book’s end there are portions of his journals and reflections on his life and legacy by important figures in Carlos life – artists, critics, authors, museum curators and friends. Carlos died in 1989 from his battle with AIDS, and the memories of the numerous ceremonies and tributes to his genius at the time of his death are still treasured here.

A brilliant and very important artist honored in a sumptuously constructed and illustrated book. Highly Recommended.