Jaime Mejía Servín
This week we honor the memory of an artist and art restorer Jaime Mejía Servín (July 8, 1940 – May 22, 2025), a creative visionary whose impact profoundly influenced the trajectory of Chicano art in the United States and who is perhaps best remembered for his work on the restoration of the América Tropical mural in downtown Los Angeles’s Olvera Street.
Jaime began his career as an art restorer in Mexico City having studied at the school of Fine Arts in Tula, Hidalgo. Later he specialized in restoration and conservation of art works at the National Center of Art Conservation and Restoration at the National Institute of Fine Arts in Mexico City (1962-1965). He was known for restoration work on the murals of Jose Clemente Orozco, David Alfaro Siqueiros, Rufino Tamayo and other legendary Mexican artists and muralists.
In addition to his restoration work, Jaime was an artist n his own right, specializing in abstract art where his works explored color and symmetry. Throughout his artistic trajectory, Jaime had more than thirty one-man shows of his art work in Mexico, Puerto Rico and the United States. He participated in more than 300 joint shows and exhibitions. Jaime was also a television producer, working at Channel 11, Mexico’s public education station, producing programs on Mexican and Latin American art and culture.
I was fortunate to meet Jaime in 1970 when I was working on my documentary América Tropical. The focus of our work together was saving the América Tropical mural painted by Mexican master David Alfaro Siqueiros in 1932 at Olvera Street in downtown Los Angeles and then unceremoniously whitewashed because of its potent political content. The mural showed the image of a crucified Native American with the eagle of the United States currency atop his cross. In preparing the documentary I was able to recruit Jaime’s help in determining the extent of decay and destruction of the mural in 1970.
The mural showed the image of a crucified Native American with the eagle of the United States currency atop his cross.
Jaime’s work in assessing the extent to which the experimental mural by the Mexican Master David Alfaro Siqueiros could be preserved, in spite of forty years of neglect, was key to a decades- long campaign to have the mural restored. The rediscovery of the América Tropical mural was instrumental in firing the imagination of en entire generation of Chicano muralists throughout the United States. The restoration project finally came to fruition in 2012 when the Getty Foundation invested 10 million dollars to have the mural stabilized and an interpretive center established iat Olvera Street.
Without doubt Mejía’s persistent work in championing the mural restoration was crucial to its eventual restoration and the creation of the interpretive center which today can be found on in downtown Los Angeles.
Jaime and I enjoyed many profoundly political discussions about the role of the Latino artist in the Americas. He will be missed on both side of the border.
Mejía Servín presente!
_____________________________________________
Copyright by Jesus Trevino with thanks to Alexis Servin for providing biographical information. Jaime Mejia photograph courtesy of Alexis Servin. Photo of America Tropical copyrighted by Barrio Dog Productions Inc.