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Guide to the Malaquias Montoya collection
CEMA 120
CEMA 120
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Table of contents
Title: Malaquias Montoya Collection
Identifier/Call Number: CEMA 120
Contributing Institution:
UC Santa Barbara Library, Department of Special Collections
Language of Material:
English
Physical Description:
1.0 linear feet
Date (inclusive): 1998-2008
Abstract: The Malaquias Montoya Collection contains silkscreen posters donated from the artist and family members. The posters are divided
into three groups Premeditated: Meditations on Capital Punishment, La Raza Graphic Center, and Miscellaneous.
creator:
Montoya, Malaquías, 1938-
The collection is open for research.
Copyright has not been assigned to the Department of Special Collections, UCSB. All requests for permission to publish or
quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Head of Special Collections. Permission for publication is given
on behalf of the Department of Special Collections as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply
permission of the copyright holder, which also must be obtained.
[Identification of Item],Malaquias Montoya Collection, CEMA 120. Department of Special Collections, UC Santa Barbara Library,
University of California, Santa Barbara.
Donated by Malaquias Montoya and family members.
The Print Portfolio includes all 12 silkscreen images from the traveling exhibition and publication, "Premeditated: Meditations
on Capital Punishment, Recent Works by Malaquias Montoya." There are an additional five miscellaneous posters and five 1982
calender posters from La Raza Galeria Center. The dates range from 1998 to 2008.
Malaquias Montoya was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico and raised in the San Joaquin Valley of California. He was brought up
in a family of seven children by parents who could not read or write either Spanish or English. The three oldest children
never went beyond a seventh grade education, as the entire family had to work as farm laborers for their survival. His father
and mother were divorced when he was ten, and his mother continued to work in the fields to support the four children still
remaining at home so they could pursue their education. Montoya graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in 1969.
Since then, he has lectured and taught at numerous colleges and universities in the San Francisco Bay Area including Stanford
and the University of California, Berkeley. He was a Professor at the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland, CA
for twelve years; for five of those years he was Chair of the Ethnic Studies Department as well. During this period he also
served as Director of the Taller de Artes Graficas, in East Oakland, where he produced various prints and conducted many community
art workshops. Since 1989 Montoya has held a professorship at the University of California, Davis, teaching both in the department
of Art and the department of Chicana/o Studies. In 2000, he spent a semester as Visiting Professor in the Art Department at
the University of Notre Dame, in Indiana, and he currently holds the title of Visiting Fellow in the Institute for Latino
Studies at Notre Dame.
Montoya's classes at Davis include silkscreening, poster making, and mural painting, with a focus on Chicano culture and history.
His own works include acrylic paintings, murals, washes, and drawings, but he is primarily known for his silkscreen prints,
which have been exhibited internationally as well as nationally. He is credited by historians as one of the founders of the
social serigraphy movement in the San Francisco Bay Area in the mid-1960's. Montoya's unique visual expression is an art of
protest, depicting the resistance and strength of humanity in the face of injustice and the necessity to unite behind that
struggle.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Capital punishment -- United States