At the tailend of the March, five of our drawing and painting majors were able to meet with Juan Sánchez, an influential American Artist and one of the most important Nuyorican cultural figures to emerge in the second half of the 20th century.

Born to migrant working-class Puerto Rican parents in Brooklyn, New York, Sánchez earned a bachelor of fine arts degree from the Cooper Union School of Art in 1977, and a master of fine arts degree from Mason Gross School of the Arts of Rutgers University in 1980.

A politically committed artist, he was inspired early on by the political teachings of the Young Lords generation of artists that include such figures as Coco Fusco, Guillermo Gómez-Peña, Pepon Osorio, and Papa Calo, who in the 1980s and ‘90s explored questions of ethnic, racial, and national identity in their work.

Sánchez’s mixed-media paintings, prints, photographs, and video installations have been exhibitied throughout the United States, Latin-America, Europe, and Egypt. Sánchez is a Professor of Art at Hunter College, City University of New York.