José Aceves

Mexican-born artist

  • Born: December 22, 1909
  • Birthplace: Chihuahua, Mexico
  • Died: August 13, 1968
  • Place of death: El Paso, Texas

Aceves was a leading member of the El Paso art community known for his public murals and colorful paintings of desert landscapes and themes from frontier history.

Early Life

José Aceves (ah-SEH-vehs) was born in Chihuahua, Mexico, on December 22, 1901. He and his family immigrated to the United States in 1915 to avoid the turbulence of the Mexican Revolution. One of ten children, he attended public school in El Paso. There, he discovered a natural talent for drawing. While learning to draw and paint, he won several art prizes in his school; his preferred subjects were landscapes and themes from Western history.

To further his training, Aceves went to the home of the established landscape painter Audley Dean Nicols (who had come to El Paso for his health in 1919) and asked him questions about his work. Nicols recognized Aceves’s talent and became his professional mentor, informally teaching the younger artist color techniques as well as the practical aspects of art. The two often went out to the desert to paint, creating distinctive and vivid compositions. Another local artist and illustrator, Tom Lea, also served as a source of critical assessment and influence on Aceves’s growth. By 1930, Aceves had developed his own artistic style, beginning a career marked by the interweaving of themes from his Hispanic heritage and images from the visual language of the American West.

Life’s Work

In 1937, Aceves was one of a group of sevenTexas muralists hired by the Treasury Department’s Section of Painting and Sculpture (created in October, 1934) to decorate public buildings with works of art emphasizing characters and events from pioneer history. The program—part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal—was created by painter George Biddle, who believed that supporting the work of artists was just as vital to society as supporting tradesmen or farmers. His inspiration was a similar program implemented successfully by the Mexican government during the 1920’s.

Prior to the creation of the Section of Painting and Sculpture, Aceves had become part of a group of artists working in El Paso who were interested in promoting the production and sale of handmade artworks historically associated with Mexican life on the frontier. In 1934, an exhibition of their work was held at the Hotel Paso del Norte. One year later, the Club Femenil in El Paso held a second art exhibition, from November 23 to 28, 1935, in which Aceves’s work was shown. That year, he also completed a study for a mural depicting stagecoach travel titled Westward Ho. Aceves’s work next was exhibited from June 6 to November 29, 1936, at the Texas Centennial Exposition in Dallas. He painted a series of murals depicting the history of Mexico, which was displayed in the show windows of a central El Paso business, and two murals showing horsemen at sunset, burros, and Mexican figures in a landscape of sandhills for the headquarters of the El Paso del Norte Arts and Crafts Guild

In July, 1938, Aceves was asked by Edward Rowan, assistant chief of the Section of Painting and Sculpture, to design a mural for the post office at Borger, Texas. Aceves’s design was accepted in August, 1938, and he was given 180 days to complete the work. He selected the theme of the importance of mail delivery in a small town; the resulting mural, Big City News, completed in early 1939, depicts Borger’s early wooden buildings and citizens’ excitement at arriving mail. A second mural for the post office in Mart, Texas, McLennan Looking for a Home (1939), depicted the arrival of the founder of the county and his family. Aceves’s experience with these projects helped him win a mural commission from the Banco Commercial in Chihuahua, Mexico. This mural, La nueva industria de la ganadería en el estado de Chihuahua (1940), depicts the founding of the Chihuahua livestock industry. He also created two detailed color studies for murals depicting the capture and abuse of native leaders by the conquistadors.

When World War II began, Aceves enlisted in the U.S. Navy and served three years, working as an illustrator. After the war he used his G.I. Bill benefits to attend El Paso Technical College and then the American Academy of Art in Chicago. Upon graduation, he returned to El Paso and created a mural and ten paintings for the Hotel Paso del Norte in El Paso, fulfilling a prewar commission. Aceves died on August 13, 1968, and was buried in the Fort Bliss National Cemetery.

Significance

Aceves was one of the first Latino painters to reinterpret the standard landscape form of nineteenth century paintings of the American West into a direct and vivid vehicle for the transmission and preservation of traditional cultures of the Southwest. The historical themes of his government-commissioned murals depict important events in the daily life of the frontier and reflect the heritage of the region. His work also depicted and celebrated the Hispanic past of the Southwest.

Bibliography

Gonzales, Manuel G. Mexicanos: A History of Mexicans in the United States. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999. Discusses Aceves’s work in the context of Mexican and Mexican American art and mural traditions.

Parisi, Philip. The Texas Post Office Murals: Art for the People. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2004. The only extant history of the massive artistic project carried out in Texas during the 1930’s under the aegis of the New Deal. Aceves’s murals in Borger and Mart are shown in full color with details on the process of their creation.

Price, Carol Ann. Early El Paso Artists. El Paso: Texas Western Press, 1983. Useful resource on the history of the city’s artistic community.