The Emeriti Hall of Fame

We are pleased to present Raoul De la Sota, Professor Emeritus of the Art Department at Los Angeles City College, as our first Hall of Fame member.

Prof. De la Sota has had a distinguished career as professional artist in addition to his teaching. His work is widely known and he has participated in many group and one-man showings. His interest in Latin Amearican Culture and in the lives, myths, and legends of indiginous peoples and their iconography has inspired his work.

Born and raised in Los Angeles by Mexican parents in a bilingual household, he studied at Los Angeles City College and then at UCLA where eventually he earned his Master of Arts degree. He received soon after graduation the first Fulbright Fellowship ever awarded to a Chicano artist for a year’s study in Peru. That trip was to change his life by experiencing a Latin American country in person for the first time. The traditions, beliefs and sacred mountain landscapes have stayed with him throughout his life.

De la Sota has shown his work in solo exhibits such as in The Museum of Man in San Diego, in 1996, where he showed a series of paintings dealing with Mayan Creation Stories. One-man shows in Oaxaca, Morelia and Valle de Bravo in Mexico along with two solo shows in Lima, Peru indicate his continuing interest in the art of those countries. Closer to home he has had one-man exhibits at the SPARC Gallery in Venice, the David Zapf Gallery in San Diego and the Avenue 50 Studio in Los Angeles. Many group shows have exhibited his work, among them exhibits in Spain as well as the Gallery of the Organization of American States in Washington D.C., the Laguna Museum of Art, the Armand Hammer Museum in Westwood and the Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach.

He has been commissioned by the Institute of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles for a sculptural work, by Victor Villaseñor for the cover of his book Wild Steps to Heaven and by the Hyatt Corporation for paintings in Nassau, the Bahamas. He often leads travel groups to Peru, Spain and Mexico seeking a better understanding of Hispanic and Pre-Hispanic sites and their cosmological beliefs.

Prizes include an Arts America Grant for a series of lectures on Chicano Art in Colombia, South America. He is included in the two-volume Contemporary Chicana and Chicano Art published in 2002 by Arizona State Press. He was selected from 100 applicants by the MTA of Los Angeles to produce a Neighborhood Poster Series on Highland Park. He has been chosen to create a three-story mural for the new Metro Terminal in El Monte He currently teaches Mexican Art History at Los Angeles City College and has lived in Highland Park for 29 years.