Judithe Hernández

Judithe Hernández
Judithe Hernández in 2010
Born	1948 (age 68–69) Los Angeles
Nationality	American
Education	Otis Art Institute
Style	Artist
Website	www.judithehernandez.com

Judithe Hernández (born 1948 in Los Angeles) is a Los Angeles-based artist whose career began as a founding member of the Chicano Art/Los Angeles Mural movements. She first received acclaim in the 1970s as a muralist. In her long career as a studio artist her artistic practice as centered on works-on-paper, principally pastels, which frequently incorporate indigenist imagery and the social-political tension of gender roles. Hernández has lived both in Chicago, Illinois and Los Angeles. In 1974, she became the fifth member, and only woman, in Los Four, the influential and celebrated East Los Angeles Chicano artist collective, along with Gilbert Luján, Carlos Almaraz, Frank E. Romero, and Roberto de la Rocha. As early as 1970, Hernández was involved in the initial efforts of Chicano artists in East Los Angeles to organize. Of this experience, Hernández later said that "Often I was literally the only female at meetings who was not a girlfriend or wife, but an active artist participant."

In 1965, Hernández became the first student to win the "Future Masters Scholarship" (awarded at LACMA and funded by the Sears & Roebuck Foundation and the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce) which enabled her to attend Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles. In 1972, after earning a B.F.A. at Otis, she began graduate studies there. When Carlos Almaraz enrolled in the graduate program that year, it marked the beginning of a long friendship and professional association as members of Los Four. Along with Almaraz, she became involved in the Chicano civil-rights movement and worked on such projects as the Chicano Moratorium Against the War. During her time at Otis, Hernández studied drawing with the renowned artist Charles White. White, an African-American artist had spent time in Mexico, and was an admirer of indigenous and Latin American art. Hernández attributes much of her success to the teachers and professors she had throughout high school and college in the arts, and she believes that they have made her the person she is today. In 1971, while working as the illustrator of the Aztlán Journal, published by the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center, Hernández illustrated the first volume of poetry by the celebrated Mexican-American poet Alurista, Floricanto en Aztlán. In 2013, the 40th anniversary edition of Floricanto received three prizes at the International Latino Book awards.