Judy Baca (credit: Photographer Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)
Judy Baca
About this Artist
Dr. Judith F. Baca, American visual artist, has dedicated over four decades to creating impactful public art. Her murals bring art into the daily lives of communities. In 1974, she established Los Angeles’ first mural program, producing over 400 murals, offering employment to thousands and evolving into the Social and Public Art Resource Center (SPARC). She serves as SPARC’s artistic director, focusing on digital technology to advocate social justice and participatory public arts projects through the SPARC’s Digital Mural Lab.
Baca’s public art monuments reflect the interconnectedness of history, people, and place, emphasizing diverse struggles for rights and community ties to the memory of land. Her most renowned work is the ongoing Great Wall of Los Angeles since 1974, a half-mile mural in San Fernando Valley that has engaged hundreds of youth and their families, artists, oral historians, and scholars.
Now Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Los Angeles, where Baca was a senior professor in Chicana/o Studies and World Arts and Cultures Departments. In 2012, the Los Angeles Unified School District named a school after her called the Judith F. Baca Arts Academy, located in Watts, California, her birthplace. Baca’s contributions have earned her prestigious accolades, including the Guggenheim Fellowship and United States Artist Rockefeller Fellowship. She has also received numerous awards most notably, the 2021 National Medal of Arts, the highest presidential honor awarded to artists in the United States.