Museum Acquires Chicano Works

The Laguna Art Museum has acquired more than 150 silk-screen prints produced by Chicano artists at East Los Angeles’ Self-Help Graphics print shop--the largest collection of Chicano silk-screen prints to be acquired by a public museum in this country, according to a museum official. The acquisition is “the most important thus far in my tenure,” said Charles Desmarais, who has been the museum’s director since 1988.

The museum has been “acutely aware of (its) lack of works by the Chicano artists who are so vital a part of the contemporary art scene in this region,” Desmarais said.

The collection cost the museum $17,000. Half came from a National Endowment for the Arts grant and the other half from museum supporters Rene and Norma Molina of Laguna Niguel and Charlie Miller of Los Angeles.

A dozen of the newly acquired works, all produced between 1983 and 1991, are on view at the museum through Nov. 12.