David Tineo (born May 23, 1955) is an American artist of Mexican descent whose works focus on cultural and identity issues particular to Mexican Americans who live in the U.S. Though internationally known, most of Tineo's life and career has been spent in Tucson, Arizona. He was diagnosed in 2004 with a macular degeneration that left him legally blind, but continues to paint and sculpt.
Early life
Tineo was born in Douglas, Arizona, a small town on the U.S.-Mexico border. His father, Patrick Tineo, a Portuguese immigrant whose own father entered the United States via Ellis Island, was mistakenly deported to Mexico when he was a young man, where he met and married Ernestina Figueroa, the woman who became David's mother. David's family moved from Douglas to a barrio in west Tucson in 1959. His father separated from the family in 1969 after which Ernestina sold tamales, cleaned homes, took in ironing, and worked various housekeeping jobs to raise her seven children while simultaneously learning English. Tineo's prodigious artistic abilities were evident early in life. His parents submitted samples of his artwork to various national art contests, all of which were rejected by judges who refused to believe they’d been drawn by a child. Tineo's artistic talent was also recognized by his teachers, who encouraged its development throughout Tineo's elementary, middle, and high school years. He began to seriously study ceramics, human anatomy and figurative drawing at Cholla High School, from which he graduated in 1974. This ability to represent form in three-dimensional space would later help him continue producing art after his vision began to fail.
Tineo received a Pell Grant after high school to study ceramics at Arizona Western College in Yuma, Arizona, then transferred to Pima Community College in January 1976 to complete his studies in Tucson and be near his family. During the summer between high school and college he’d become involved with the newly constructed El Rio Neighborhood Center, where he’d met and befriended Antonio Pazos, an older, more experienced artist and former member of the San Diego Chicano activist/muralist group Toltecas de Aztlan. Tineo and Pazos would later collaborate on Nuestras Raíces Humanas, one of Tucson's largest and most famous works of mural art. While taking painting classes at Pima College he renewed his ties with the El Rio Neighborhood Center and in 1976 was asked by them to paint a mural, Tineo's first, on the building's central patio, where it remains today. In the fall of 1976 Tineo joined the U.S. Army and was assigned to the S3 (Military) Operations Unit of the 3rd Infantry Division stationed in Schweinfurt, Germany, where he was promoted to the rank of specialist and his skills applied to cartography and the production of presentation materials to upper-level officers. Tineo was honorably discharged from the Army in 1979.
Political influences
Tineo's art has been profoundly influenced by the social, political and historical issues pertaining to Mexican-American identity in America.
Chicano Movement
The rise and political development of the Chicano Movement in the 1960s and 1970s, and concomitant birth of the Chicano Art Movement, helped focus Tineo's attention on the role of art in community activism. During this period Tineo spent time working with the Brown Berets, MEChA (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan) and other community activist groups, and he is still considered one of the most influential leaders of the Chicano Mural Movement in Arizona. Decades later, in 1991, Tineo's art was included in the Chicano Art: Resistance and Affirmation (CARA), exhibit organized by the Wight Art Gallery in UCLA. The CARA exhibit, which traveled to various cities around the U.S., was the first exhibit ever to focus on the works of artists engaged in the Chicano civil rights movement; it firmly established Chicano art – in all its forms – as a distinct and legitimate part of American Art in general. Tineo helped lead the development of the Chicano Mural Movement both in Arizona and Tucson during the latter half of the 20th century, and remains an important part of the city's visual history.