Nicely framed ink drawing on Artist board by Al Ruiz. The Artist board is F.J. Head Water Color Board made by National Card, Mat & Board Company. Sight size is 27.5 by 20 inches. The size with the frame measures 36 by 29.75 inches.ALBERTO VELABorn: Mexico City, December 24, 1920Died: 2006 As a hopeful young artist in Mexico City, Alberto Vela was encouraged by a magazine publisher who was impressed by the vigor of his work to continue his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts. The artist took his advice and a year later at the age of 20 was working for the publisher as an illustrator for the magazine La Lydia. The work in his portfolio so impressed the publisher that he purchased all the drawings of cathedrals, plazas, and vaqueros on horseback.Among his teachers were Jose Clemente Orozco and Carlos Ruano Llopis. He was later to receive his mural training with Diego Rivera. While he continued his magazine Illustrations, the artist also worked as an advertising illustrator for the J. Walter Thompson Agency, poster designer, and as a cartoonist for the Mexico City newspapers where his technical skill was combined with a vivid and unusual imagination. Horses were a favorite subject with him at that time and by the year 1950 he had become official artist for the Plaza Mexico Bull Fight Ring and established himself as an artist and illustrator in the fullest sense. From small pen and ink illustrations to large mural decorations, his work was done with artistic dedication. His later illustrations were to be rendered in pastels and oils for full color reproduction. In 1954 he moved to Florida where he painted portraits of members of prominent families and especially effective murals, the largest in the Le Mar Hotel. Orlando. While illustrating for Black and White Magazine in New York City in 1955, Vela became interested in the American Indian. The following three years was spent in accumulating all the reference material that was available to him. In the meantime he continued to paint large and impressive murals, most notably the murals in the EI Prado Hotel, Chicago, and the Hilton Hotel, Torreon, Mexico. He settled in Los Angeles in 1959 and completed the last of his mural paintings in the EI Cortez Hotel, San Diego, and the Santa Rita Hotel, Tucson. Though the artist had worked skillfully in every medium, he restricted himself to oil, acrylic, and casein, and in the process found that he was able to use them interchangeably. He pointed a wide variety of Subjects but at every opportune moment returned to painting the subject he had spent three years in researching, the American Indian. In his early western studies there was evidence of the influence of Russell and Farny, but the soundness of draftsmanship and form were his own. Later on, his careful observance of fact and a strong compositional sense gave him the versatility to depict his subject convincingly. His early subjects and studies were never shown to the public but kept in his studio as reference paints. In 1974 his paintings were shown to the general public which readily accepted his finely rendered studies of the American West. His work may be seen in a few select Galleries in the United States.

In good condition for age.

27.5 x 20.25 x 1 in