Rolando Castellón, also known as Rolando Dionisio Castellón-Alegria (born 1937) is a

Nicaraguan American A Nicaraguan American ( es, nicaragüense-americano, ''nicaragüense-estadounidense'', or ) is an American of Nicaraguan descent. They are also referred to as "nica" or "nicoya". The Nicaraguan American population at the 2010 Census was 348,20 ...

painter, author, art historian, and curator. He was a well-known contributor to the arts of

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

and he has lived in Costa Rica since 2013.

Biography

Rolando Castellón was born in 1937 in

Managua ) , settlement_type = Capital city , motto = , image_map = , mapsize = , map_caption = , pushpin_map = Nicar ...

Nicaragua Nicaragua (; ), officially the Republic of Nicaragua (), is the largest country in Central America, bordered by Honduras to the north, the Caribbean to the east, Costa Rica to the south, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. Managua is the countr ...

. He became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1983. In 1966, he was a co-founder of the Casa Hispana de Bellas Artes in the

Mission District The Mission District (Spanish: ''Distrito de la Misión''), commonly known as The Mission (Spanish: ''La Misión''), is a neighborhood in San Francisco, California. One of the oldest neighborhoods in San Francisco, the Mission District's name is ...

of San Francisco. By 1970, Castellón was a co-founder of

Galería de la Raza Galería de la Raza (GDLR) is a non-profit art gallery and artist collective founded in 1970, that serves the largely Chicano and Latino population of San Francisco's Mission District. GDLR mounts exhibitions, hosts poetry readings, workshops, a ...

, alongside

Ralph Maradiaga Ralph Maradiaga (1934–1985) was an American artist, curator, photographer, printmaker, teacher, and filmmaker. He was Chicano, one of the co-founders of Galería de la Raza and part of the San Francisco Bay Area Chicano Art Movement. Biograp ...

Rupert García Rupert García (born in 1941 in San Joaquin Valley of French Camp, California) is an American Chicano visual artist and professor. He is known as a painter, pastellist, and screen printer. In the 1960s, as a leader, he led a movement against 'Yank ...

Peter Rodríguez Peter Rodríguez (1926 – 2016) was an American artist, curator, and museum director. He was the founder, director and curator of the Mexican Museum in San Francisco, and a co-founder of the Galería de la Raza. Early life Peter Rodríguez w ...

, Francisco X. Camplis, Gustavo Ramos Rivera, Carlos Loarca, Manuel Villamor, Robert Gonzales, Luis Cervantes, Chuy Campusano, and

René Yañez René Yañez (19 September 1942 – 29 May 2018) was a Mexican-American painter, assemblage artist, performance artist, curator and community activist located in San Francisco, California. He was a well-known contributor to the arts of San Franc ...

. He served as a curator at

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern and contemporary art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art, and wa ...

(SFMoMA), from 1972 to 1981; and at the Museum of Contemporary Art and Design, from 1994 to 1998. His first retrospective art exhibition, ''Rolando Castellon: A Legacy of Mud, Post-Columbian Objects, 1981–1997'' (1997) was held at the Art Institute of Chicago.

Bibliography

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References

External links

SFMOMA 75th Anniversary: Rolando Castellón, conducted by Jess Rigelhaupt, 2007
by

Regional Oral History Office The Oral History Center (ROHO) is part of The Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley. The office was founded in 1954. ROHO conducts, analyzes, teaches about, and preserves oral history interviews on a wide range of topics rela ...

, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley {{US-painter-1930s-stub Living people 1937 births American people of Nicaraguan descent People from Managua Nicaraguan painters Hispanic and Latino American artists American curators Costa Rican curators