Ex-Inmate Revisits Artwork at San Quentin

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By Associated Press

Published: 08/06/2003

For half a century, inmates, officers and a few visitors have stood entranced by an artistic jewel hidden in the heart of San Quentin State Prison -- a series of murals that captures the history of California in a sweeping panoply too big to be confined by bars.
On July 26, the artist responsible, Alfredo Santos, looked at his work for the first time as a free man. 'I never thought I'd see them again,' said Santos. 'I never told anyone.'
Santos went to prison as a young man in 1951 for selling heroin -- he was busted first time out, he says -- and served four years. He started painting the murals in 1953 at the request of prison officials who were looking to decorate some new walls put up when the old dining hall was divided into sections.
Santos worked on the murals for two years, standing on scaffolding that was pushed around by a couple of other inmates. 'Everybody wanted to work for me because we ate good,' Santos said with a chuckle. 'I gained 20 pounds.'
Santos got his inspiration from the prison library's books, reading up on California history.
A naturally quick worker, he was also inspired to work fast by a self-imposed deadline -- his parole date was coming up and he had no desire to extend his stay.
The murals, 12 feet tall and nearly 100 feet long, cover California history from frontier days to the frenzy of the World War II homefront. Executed in a reddish-brown oil, the works are a panorama of popular images, from movie stars to field hands set against an iconic background of agriculture and history.
There are a couple of clever optical tricks: a cable car standing at a turnaround appears to move as you walk by, as does a plane being hammered together by workers.
And there are a few sly touches Santos sneaked in, such as a rooftop air warden who is pointing his telescope not at the skies but at a window where a young woman is undressing. In another mural, a man in a sombrero is surreptitiously crossing the Mexican-California border.
In his pre-prison life, Santos worked for a while as a 'coyote' smuggling people into the United States, said son Rene Noel Santos.
It was hard to see the young hellion in the Santos of Saturday, a polite old gentleman of 75 in a corduroy suit and straw hat.
After getting out of San Quentin, he parlayed his talent as a caricaturist into a job as a street artist at Disneyland. He worked as an artist and gallery owner, but ran into minor trouble in 1960 and fled to Mexico. Later, he returned to the United States and continued his career in art.
Over the years, Santos would marry, and be divorced from, three wives, and live on the East Coast for some years before returning to his hometown of San Diego, where he now lives with son Rene.
Family members knew about his past and the murals, but Santos never wanted to go public.
'My dad always pushed it away,' said the younger Santos. 'He was like, 'Oh, I don't want anyone to know about that.' And I was like, 'Dad, this is big stuff.' '
But family members started pushing harder after hearing a network news account of the murals. Recently, a friend contacted prison officials, leading to Saturday's visit, which answered some long-nagging questions for administrators who knew an inmate was responsible for the paintings but didn't know which one.
The name had been lost as inmates and officers moved on and memories faded.
The prison spokesman even dug up a 1955 newspaper article showing the artist at work. Santos also signed his name. A heart 'carved' into a tree painted on one mural contains the words 'by Santos.'

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