Portraits of an artist behind bars who painted prison, red and blue and green
His masterpiece has been on display for decades in a place no one wants to visit, admired by a rough crowd of critics who study its beauty and nuance for years on end — until the parole board lets them out.
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.
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