Esquivel also spent a lengthy period as a wildlife artist between 1973 and 1991, when he withdrew from Chicano art due to its association with radicalism.
[6] Esquivel attended the Technical and Vocational High School in San Antonio, where he studied with Katherine Alsup, who entered his work in many competitions.
[2] Alsup also helped Esquivel win a scholarship to the Warren Hunter School of Art in 1954, where he received his certificate in Graphics and Watercolor Painting in 1958.
Mel Casas (1929-2014) and Jesse Treviño (1946-2023) joined the group at that time, and the name Con Safo was adopted.
Until MAYO [the Mexican American Youth Organization] under José Angel Gutiérrez led the student rebellions, we accepted the white man’s rule.
)[2] These include Henri “Le Douanier” Rousseau the self-taught late 19th and early 20th century French artist, whom the Surrealists and Pablo Picasso admired.
[1] It has been argued that "Esquivel’s most important contributions to Chicano art were his paintings from the early 1970s of stylized farm workers (some of which were abstracted into virtual laboring beasts, others melded with the crops they harvested) and his allegorical variations on his parents' simple Westside home that he painted in the 2000s (they allude to poverty, and to the threats posed by crime and drugs, but these factors were countered by images of familial warmth, spirituality, and the accumulation of simple possessions that seem to offer protection and hope).
[2] His ink drawing Untitled, 1967 (private collection), features a surreal tableau that mysteriously appears on a tree stump.
[2] His mixed media work La Cruz, 1970 (20 x 30 inches, collection of the artist's estate), features a cross with rays of light and surreal elements at the top.
His watercolor West of Town, 1970 (22 3/8 x 27 3/8 inches, San Antonio Museum of Art, gift of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Willson), is an important work of political advocacy that advances an activist slate of Chicano candidates.
[2] His watercolor Cultural Genocide, 1971 (23 x 29 inches, private collection) features a strange "creature [that] is suggested in the center, with prominent ribs.
"[2] His watercolor Southwest Landscape, 1973 or 1971 (20 x 30 inches, private collection) shows workers "so accustomed to stoop labor that they appear to be quadrupeds planted into the earth.
They seem to exist in a dreamlike state, hypnotized or locked in suspended animation, perhaps awaiting a social and political awakening that will set them free.
[2] His pencil drawing El Caballo, 1973 (20 x 30 inches, the artist’s estate), punningly has a horse metamorphose out of cigarette smoke.
[1] His painting La Tiendita, 2014, was featured in Xicanx: Dreamers + Changemakers at the Museum of Anthropology at The University of British Columbia.
[1][8] His painting Las Nubes, 2016 (30 x 40 inches, collection of the artist’s estate) features produce that helps to conceal a UFW eagle.