"Campesino y también fan de los Pumas," a silkscreen print, was designed by artist Maceo Montoya in 2007. Courtesy photo

Gallery 625 will host a group exhibition featuring the artwork of the Royal Chicano Air Force in a show called “RCAF and Beyond.”

The Royal Chicano Air Force, originally named the Rebel Chicano Art Front, was founded in 1969 to express the goals of the Chicano civil rights and labor organizing movement of the United Farm Workers.

Founded by Esteban Villa and the late Jose Montoya, the movement was one of the most important collective artist group movements in California in the 1970s and ’80s and worked to make available to the Chicano community a bilingual and bicultural arts center where artists could come together, exchange ideas, provide mutual support and make available to the public artistic, cultural, and educational programs and events.

“RCAF and Beyond” will feature the work of 12 artists, including the silkscreen posters of Montoya, Villa, Ricardo Favela and Rudy Cuellar. These posters are on loan from the Sacramento State collection.

Regional artists influenced by, or participating in, the RCAF and featured in the exhibition include D. Gonzalez, Xico Gonzalez, Carlos Jackson, Jaime Montiel, Maceo Montoya and Malaquias Montoya.

Paintings by Omarte Jimenez and Ruby Chacon will be included as well. Chacon is the co-founder of the Mestizo Institute of Culture and Art, and Mestizo Arts and Activism in partnership with the University of Utah. The show runs through June 3.

Many of the exhibiting artists will be attending the opening reception from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. Friday, May 2. The gallery is in the Yolo County Administration Building, 625 Court St. in Woodland. For more information, call YoloArts at 530-406-4844.

MaceoMontoyaW

Jose Montoya PosterW

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