Artists
Artemio Rodriguez
Artemio Rodríguez was born in Tacámbaro, Michoacán, México in 1972. He studied printmaking under Juan Pasco, master printmaker at Taller Martin Pescador (Kingfisher Workshop) in Mexico City, and later immigrated to Los Angeles where he became a printmaker at Self Help Graphics. Rodriguez co-founded La Mano Press in 2002 in Los Angeles before relocating to Michoacán in 2008 as La Mano Gráfica. Rodríguez directs the Library of Illustrated Books (Biblioteca de Libros Ilustrados), and he is known for his linocut prints as well as his murals, vehicles, and children’s books. Influenced by both European medieval woodcuts and Mexican cultural symbolism developed by artists like José Guadalupe Posada, Rodríguez’s style emphasizes simplicity, clarity, and narrative. His images come from contemporary icons like American cartoons and chicano culture and historical traditions like mythology, surrealism, zodiac signs, and Mexican costumbrismo. His work has been exhibited internationally; is held in the collections of many public institutions including the Seattle Art Museum, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Library of Congress, and Museo José Guadalupe Posada; and is published in the book American Dream.
Richard Duardo
Duardo was born May 15, 1952, in Boyle Heights. He graduated from Franklin High School in Highland Park and studied art at Pasadena Community College and UCLA, where he got a master’s degree in fine art.
After working with the famed Self-Help Graphics arts center that specializes in printmaking, Duardo was a co-founder in the late 1970s of the Centro de Arte Público, a highly political arts collective in Highland Park.
A gregarious, prominent figure in the downtown arts scene, he worked as a printer with numerous world-famous artists, including David Hockney, Keith Haring and Banksy. And his own creations — silk-screen portraits of Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, Duke Ellington, Che Guevara, Lauren Bacall and many others — were highly praised.
Maurice Vouga
Maurice Vouga (1949-1996) was a Swiss born photographer who spent 9 years living in and photographing Los Angeles. The series of 150 photos he shot and and printed out of his lab culminated in a collection titled Paradise Lost