Alfredo Rodríguez was born in 1954 in Tepic, Mexico, a small town in the state of Nayarit. He grew up in a family of nine children, and painting was as much a part of his childhood as learning to walk. Some of his earliest memories are of illustrating classroom assignments and painting portraits of family members.
At the age of six, his mother gave him a simple set of watercolors with just six basic colors: red, yellow, blue, burnt sienna, white, and black. He started mixing them with water and discovered a magical world of possibilities. He watched how red and yellow made orange, and blue and yellow made green. That was the moment he fell in love with color, and he’s still discovering new combinations to this day.
As a kid in Mexico, he watched American Western movies and they fascinated him. He also went on school trips to the Sierra del Nayar, where the Cora and Huichol Indians lived. He loved their traditions, their customs, and their brightly colored clothing. All of that stayed with him and shaped the artist he would become.
“Considero que el realismo es como la música clásica.”
That quote, “I consider realism to be like classical music,” sums up his whole approach. He calls himself a traditional artist and describes his style as Classical Realism with a bit of Impressionism. He’s not interested in gimmicks. He wants to master the technique, the composition, and the expression in every detail.
He moved to California in 1975, and that’s when his career really took off. An American art dealer commissioned him to paint American Indians, and he’s been focused on that ever since. He visits Indian Reservations regularly to research and study. He wants to get it right, to capture the dignity of the people and the majesty of their surroundings.
Q: What subjects does Alfredo Rodríguez paint?
A: He paints the American West of the 1800s. His subjects include cowboys, Navajo and Plains Indians, Mountain Men, prairie and pioneer settlers, and miners from the California and Colorado Gold Rush.
His work has been featured in major magazines like Art of the West, Southwest Art, and International Fine Art Collector. He’s exhibited at important shows including “Masters of the American West” at the Autry Museum in Los Angeles. He won the “1991 Artist of the Year” award from the Favell Museum, and his paintings are in the permanent collections of several museums.
Q: Where does Rodríguez live now?
A: He has lived in California since 1975 and currently resides in Corona, California. He continues to travel regularly to Indian Reservations and locations around the country, researching and painting studies for his major pieces.
