The Los Angeles Fires: A Major Crisis for LA Latino Artists.

The Los Angeles fires are among the worst climatic disasters in American history. In the first four days of its eruption, the initial fire in Palisades had zero containment. After four days, 7,000 structures were destroyed in Altadena and 5,000 in Palisades. Palisades has a population of 23,000 residents, but after fires broke out on January 7th, country officials ordered a wider evacuation of over 180,000 Angelos. The combined fires have already destroyed an area four and a half times the size of Manhattan Island and are still not totally controlled. At least 27 people have died, but many more could be buried under the remaining fire rubble.

Photo by Jesus Treviño of approaching fire near Altadena.

The Los Angeles fire began in Palisades, spread to Malibu, and a separate fire erupted in Altadena at the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains, a large community of long-time middle-class Blacks and Latinos residents. The Palisades fire threatened the existence of museums in the surrounding area including the Getty Center, the Hammer Museum in the middle of Westwood, and the Fowler Museum at UCLA. Horrific fire came to the very doorsteps of the Getty Museum that houses one of the world’s most famous art collections.

The Getty Museum near Westwood and Palisades. Photo by Ricardo Romo.

Los Angeles has always been one of the great art metropolises of the United States, if not of the entire world. Angelos' love of art is evident by its many museums and galleries that support artists. An enormous amount of art is produced and sold in Los Angeles annually. The fire spread so readily that the majority of residents were given less than 30 minutes to leave their homes or businesses.
Many had to leave behind their art, memories, or beloved pets. There are no estimates of how much art was lost due to the intense fires that impacted both collectors and artists. Harriett and I studied at UCLA in the 1970s and we were fortunate to see beautiful paintings and other art work in many of the Palisades homes of UCLA professors and friends we met in graduate school.

A view of Los Angeles from the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains near Altadena. Photo courtesy of Jesus Treviño.

The Palisades is where Harriett and I first saw Mexican art. My professor of Mexican history at UCLA, Dr. James Wilkie, collected Mexican and Latin American art and today his Palisades house is one of the few left standing on his block. Last year the Wilkie family had cleared all dry shrubs surrounding the house, an action that may have saved this house as the fire approached. The family of my Chicano history professor, the late Juan Gomez-Quinones, was not so fortunate. The fire consumed the Gomez-Quinones home including the extensive archives and Chicano art he had collected over his lifetime.

The Getty Museum near the 405 Freeway and Palisades. Photo taken in 2023 by Ricardo Romo.

There are many unknowns about this tragic fire in Los Angeles–such as where it started and the extent of loss–both in terms of human lives and personal possessions. Jesús Salvador Treviño, a friend for many years, told me how the fire impacted his family in Pasadena.

At one in the morning of January 8, Jesús Treviño and his wife were awakened by police patrol cars with loudspeakers and given 20 minutes to evacuate their Pasadena home. During the day, they had become aware of the Palisades fires miles away but had no reason to believe that their community on the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains was in danger. The Eaton Fire, as this fire was known, would soon engulf part of the quiet middle-class neighborhood known for its racial and economic diversity.

I have known Jesus Treviño for fifty years and have been working with him weekly over the past three years contributing art essays to his social media platform Latinopia. A resident of the Los Angeles area for the majority of his life, he had moved to Pasadena only three years ago. Treviño is a retired filmmaker and documentarian who is a well-known and respected figure in Chicano and Latino arts and culture. When given only 20 minutes to leave their home, he gave quick thoughts to which of his most valuable artworks he could take with him. Original paintings by Gilbert “Magu” Lujan and Cesar Martinez were on his list. The large “Magu” paintings did not fit in his car, so he left with only two works by Cesar Martinez.

When I called Treviño on the second day of the fire I found him safe at a Motel Six several miles from Pasadena. He told me this evacuation story and noted that he had left with his computers, the two art pieces, his dogs, and several suitcases of clothing and valued possessions. He and his wife were among the lucky ones. He learned later that the horrific fire had headed directly toward his home but miraculously turned south ten blocks from his area. The Treviños have returned to their Pasadena home safe but exhausted by the ordeal.

Frank Romero art currently on display at the San Antonio Mcnay Art Museum. Gift of Harriett and Ricardo Romo.

I knew that our friend, artist Frank Romero, had family in Altadena so I reached out to him as well. Romero recently opened a solo show in New York and San Antonio, and I had heard that possibly his artist daughter's house had been destroyed. Sonia Romero is a star in her own right with a series of exhibits in Southern California. Frank informed me that Sonia’s home was safe, but his other daughter Rosie and her husband Rigo had lost their home containing many of his art works. Frank Romero’s former wife’s house had been spared, but a number of Frank's art pieces had been looted after she evacuated the home.

Sonia Romero in her Boyle Heights studio. Photo by Ricardo Romo.

Most of the Latino art community learned about the misfortunes of artists Salomon Huerta and his wife Ana Morales-Huerta through their active postings on Facebook and Instagram. The Huertas lost a large portion of their combined art work when their Altadena rental home was destroyed on the second day of the fire. Huerta had a studio in Westwood where some work was saved. Since the destructive inferno, Huerta has been active online selling his art to raise subsistence funds. He is known for a series of paintings depicting anonymous subjects who sit or stand with their backs to viewers. In some early works he painted the backs of the heads of his subjects making a statement about racial profiling.

Salomon Huerta. Collection of Harriett and Ricardo Romo. Photo by Ricardo Romo.

I reached out to art friends in Southern California but was unable to confirm whether or not several other Chicano/Latino artists had also lost their homes or studios.Thankfully, major arts institutions, including the J. Paul Getty Trust; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; and the Hammer Museum have raised $12 million to aid artists and art workers in the city.

Salomon Huerta. Collection of Harriett and Ricardo Romo. Photo by Ricardo Romo.

In addition, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, and The Ford Foundation are also participating in the aid effort called the LA Arts Community Fire Relief Fund. This relief effort aims to support “artists and arts workers in all disciplines who have lost residences, studios, livelihoods or have otherwise been impacted by the devastating Los Angeles fires.” The Getty noted that the destruction of residences, archives, and studios has delivered a blow to thousands in the region and to the “creative economy” more broadly.