Rosalia Romero

Assistant Professor of Art History
With Pomona Since: 2019
  • Expertise

    Expertise

    Rosalía Romero is an art historian and curator of Latin American and Latinx art. A specialist in Mexico and the U.S.-Mexico borderlands, her research focuses on anarchism, visual culture and modern art in early twentieth-century Mexico and the broader Americas. Romero is at work on a book manuscript titled Anarchism and Revolutionary Art in Greater Mexico, 1890-1940, as well as projects on Mexican Muralism and the visual culture of anarcho-feminism in Mexico and Brazil.

    Romero teaches a survey of Latin American and Latinx art, as well as seminars on Latin American avant-gardes and the U.S.-Mexico border. She also teaches a Critical Inquiry (ID1) course called “Southern California Murals” that introduces students to the diverse art history, culture and geography of greater Los Angeles. Romero supports student research and curating at Pomona and at museums and institutions nationally. Her students have co-authored publications and collaborated on museum exhibitions.

    To learn more about Romero’s work, please visit her personal website.

    Research Interests

    • Relation between art and politics
    • Influence of anarchism on modern art in Mexico and the Americas
    • Social realism and abstraction in the twentieth century
    • Conceptualism in contemporary art

    Areas of Expertise

    • Latin American and Latinx Art
    • Mexican Muralism
    • U.S.-Mexico Border Art
    • Print and Visual Culture of the Americas
    • Latin American Avant-Gardes
  • Work

    Work

    Publications

    "Painting Anarchism: Rosendo Salazar and Mural Painting in Post-Revolutionary Mexico" (under review)

    MexiCali Biennial (co-edited volume under contract with Taller California Press)

    Review of Border Spaces: Visualizing the U.S.-Mexico Frontera by Katherine G. Morrissey and John-Michael H. Warner, eds. (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2018), in Bulletin of Spanish Studies vol. 98, no. 7 (2021), 1210-1211.

    CrossBorder Photography: Images of the U.S.-Mexico Border from the Permanent Collection, with Madeleine Mount-Cors ’23, Maelvi Nuñez ’22 and Grace Sartin ’21 (Claremont, CA: Benton Museum of Art at Pomona College, 2021).

    “El Otro Lado (The Other Side): Border Art Histories of the MexiCali Biennial,” Library of Congress Research Guide, with Ed Gomez, Luis G. Hernandez, April Lillard and Alexandra Clare Dean ’22.

    “Fermín Sagristá, Magonista Art, and Revolutionary Anarchism in Mexico and Brazil,” in Pilar Tompkins Rivas, ed., Regeneración: Three Generations of Revolutionary Ideology (Los Angeles: Vincent Price Museum, 2018), 27-33.

    Talks

    “Women, Anarcha-Feminism, and the Avant-Garde in Brazil and Mexico, 1910s-1920s,” Anarchist Arts and Cultural Politics in Latin America (panel), European Social Science History Conference, Gothenburg University, Sweden, April 14, 2023

    “Anarchism, Revolutionary Art, and the U.S.-Mexico Border, 1910-1920,” Swann Fellow Lecture, Library of Congress, Washington DC, July 18, 2022

    “Rosendo Salazar and Mural Painting After the Mexican Revolution,” Company of Ideas Forum: Art and Crisis, Jeffrey Rubinoff Foundation, Hornby Island, British Columbia, Canada, June 13-16, 2022

    “(De)Structuring Border Art Histories: Anarchism and Art at the U.S.-Mexico Border,” Department of Art History, University of California, Irvine, May 17, 2022

    “Anarchist Muralism: Rosendo Salazar and the Revolutionary Art of Post-Revolutionary Mexico,” Annual Conference of the College Art Association, February 2021

    “Radical Lines and Utopias: The Partido Liberal Mexicano’s Revolutionary Art at the U.S.-Mexico Border,” Newberry Seminar in Borderlands and Latino/a Studies, Chicago, Illinois, January 2021

    “Radical Americas: David Alfaro Siqueiros, Ruben Ortiz-Torres, and the Anarchist Genealogies of Muralism,” Latino Art Now!, Houston, Texas, April 2019

    Public Presentations, Media, and Podcasts

    “Modern and Contemporary Latin American Art History with Professor Romero,” Sagecast (Pomona College podcast), November 2022

    “Mexican Labor Agreement and the Mexicali Biennial,” exhibition presentation with Daniel Ruanova, Ed Gomez and Sam White ’23, Latino Education and Advocacy Days (LEAD) Summit, California State University, San Bernardino, September 2021

    Histories of the MexiCali Biennial, Public Presentation with MexiCali Biennial Curators, Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History, September 2021

    EncontrARTazo, a roundtable discussion on community arts and activism, KUCR radio (88.3), Riverside, California, May 2021

    CrossBorder Photography Team,” Inside the Benton Podcast, February 2021

  • Education

    Education

    Ph.D. in Art History, Duke University

    M.A. in Art History, Duke University

    B.A. in Communication, University of California, San Diego

  • Awards & Honors

    Awards & Honors

    Mellon Foundation, Borderlands Culture Fund Grant to MexiCali Biennial (member of curatorial team), 2022-23

    American Council of Learned Societies, Sustaining Public Engagement Grant to MexiCali Biennial (member of curatorial team), 2022-23

    Library of Congress, Swann Foundation Research Fellowship, Washington, DC, 2022

    Ibero-Amerikanisches Institut, Research Fellowship, Berlin, Germany, 2018

    Getty Research Institute, Library Research Grant, Los Angeles, 2017         

    Fulbright/García Robles Fellowship, Mexico City, Mexico, 2016-2017