JAILHOUSE ART

Alfredo Santos was a two-bit hood when he landed in California’s San Quentin State Prison in 1951 for selling heroin. He left his mark on the state’s oldest prison by painting a collection of nearly 100-foot-long murals in the inmate cafeteria, a flowing picture book of California’s history.

For years no one knew who the painter was. Santos, embarrassed by his time in San Quentin, kept silent.

He is 80 now. He shuffles from one shabby San Diego rental to another, scraping by on $800 a month in Social Security. “I’m the worst businessman in the world,” Santos said. His white goatee is carefully trimmed, his shirt pockmarked by unattended cigarettes. “I gave a lot of my work away. Got ripped off. I always said I wont be famous until after I’m dead.”

Santos was born in San Diego but spent much of his childhood in nearby Tijuana, Mexico. When Santos was 8, teachers were taking note of portraits he had drawn of classmates. He enrolled in an art school but also smuggled illegal immigrants into the US and had to spent 18 months in federal prison. At San Quentin, Santos was assigned to fill the cafeteria’s blank walls in 1953 after winning a prison art competition. He worked at night for more than two years, aided by two inmate helpers who moved scaffolding, and overseen by a single guard.

Santos was paroled after four years. He opened a gallery in San Diego and embarked on a career as an artist. And a fine artist, Santos figured, shouldn’t have a rap sheet. So he told no one. “When they were done, it wasn’t seen as important to know who painted the murals,” said Lt. Sam Robinson, San Quentin’s spokesman.

In the mid-1990s, local historians began asking: who painted the murals? Santos answer ered it a few years later when he called the prison to see his work once again. Vernell Crittendon, San Quentin’s spokesman at the time, hung up on him. “I thought he was just a criminal,” Crittendon said. “And I’m not letting a criminal into the prison unless he has an invitation from a judge.” In 2003, Santos was finally identified as the muralist. Crittendon invited Santos to San Quentin; he was feted and given an honorary key to the joint. “It was nice,” Santos said. “There was a big buffet. I was a celebrity for one night.”

Seeing the murals for the first time is a startling and incongruous experience. Portions are marred by water damage and flaking. Here and there a con seeking immortality has scrawled his name. They are jammed with images of California’s transformation from wilderness to mid-20th century industrial powerhouse. Indians and the Gold Rush flow into agriculture, oil, Hollywood, aviation and freeways. A San Francisco streetcar and the Golden Gate Bridge share space with the Hollywood Bowl and the Los Angeles Coliseum. Ironworkers erecting cities rub shoulders with Einstein and the atomic bomb.

After San Quentin, his career took him to Mexico, where he found success in Guadalajara, Acapulco and Mexico City. He produced thousands of paintings and wood sculptures. He made good money but spent it fast. Santos finally landed in the small Catskills town of Fleischmanns in the mid-1960s after two disastrous years in NY. The Catskills are thought to be littered with paintings and sculptures Santos produced over a decade of hard work. But since Santos became known as the muralist of San Quentin, prices have risen sharply and availability has withered.

Now Santos lives in downtown San Diego flophouse. “It’s too late for me to make any money,” Santos said. “But at least I’m finally being recognized. It’s proof that I existed.”
-Mike Anton (LATWP)