MUSEUM COLLECTIONS

Works by Mel Casas (1929–2014) are held in the permanent collections of seven major American art museums, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Whitney Museum of American Art. The paintings represented in these collections span the full arc of his Humanscape series (1965–1989) and reflect the growing institutional recognition of his contribution to American art.

Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.

**Humanscape 141 (Barrio Dog)**

1987 | Acrylic on canvas | 72 × 96 in.

Together, these two works frame nearly two decades of the Humanscape series' engagement with the visual politics of Mexican American identity in the Southwest. Humanscape 62 (Brownies of the Southwest) places the Frito Bandito — a then-ubiquitous advertising mascot that the National Mexican-American Anti-Defamation Committee successfully campaigned to retire in 1971 — alongside a brown-skinned Girl Scout and other charged imagery, documenting how advertising substituted caricature for genuine cultural representation during that era. Acquired in 2012 through the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment, it was featured in the Smithsonian's touring exhibition Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art. Humanscape 141 (Barrio Dog), acquired in 1998 through the same endowment, belongs to the final decade of the series: a solitary dog in a barren landscape, the painting examines not what the Southwest's self-image celebrates but what it systematically leaves out.

CAPTION: Mel Casas, Humanscape 62 (Brownies of the Southwest), 1970, acrylic on canvas, 72 × 96 in. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C. Museum purchase through the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment. / Mel Casas, Humanscape 141 (Barrio Dog), 1987, acrylic on canvas, 72 × 96 in. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C. Museum purchase through the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment.

Mel Casas, HUMANSCAPE 62 (BROWNIES OF THE SOUTHWEST), 1970. Acrylic on canvas, 72 × 96 in. Collection: Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C. Acquired 2012, Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment.

Under the four statutory factors of 17 U.S.C. § 107, this image is reproduced for purposes of criticism, commentary, and educational documentation on the official biographical website of the artist; its purpose and character are nonprofit and educational. The work is a published artwork of established cultural and historical significance that has been widely reproduced in scholarly and institutional contexts, and the single complete work is shown only for identification and critical discussion, with no portion isolated from its scholarly context. This use does not substitute for or compete with any commercial market for the original or licensed reproductions and instead supplements scholarly understanding; it is a fair use under 17 U.S.C. § 107.

Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, N.Y.

San Antonio Circus presents Fiesta — San Antonio's annual celebration of heritage and civic identity — as hollow pageant. A looming tiger, more vivid and animated than any human figure in the composition, shares the canvas with a pyramid of crowned queens rendered in flat, vacant patches of color, their empty eye sockets replaced by the trappings of wealth and inherited privilege. Casas, who viewed his adopted city through the lens of a sharp cultural outsider, used the painting to expose the racialized elitism underlying spectacle-as-civic-pride. The work was exhibited in "Sixties Surreal" at the Whitney (September 2025–January 2026) and subsequently acquired under accession number 2026.34 through the Katherine Schmidt Shubert Purchase Fund — the first Humanscape to enter the Whitney's permanent collection since Casas participated in the 1975 Whitney Biennial.

CAPTION: Mel Casas, Humanscape 56 (San Antonio Circus), 1969, acrylic on canvas, 72 × 96 in. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Purchase, Katherine Schmidt Shubert Purchase Fund, 2026.34.

**Humanscape 141 (Barrio Dog)**

1987 | Acrylic on canvas | 72 × 96 in.

Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR

Humanscape 70 (Comic Whitewash) places a young boy — painted with specificity and weight — before a tilted screen populated entirely by white male superheroes from Marvel and DC Comics: Captain America, Superman, Thor, Hawkman, Spider-Man, Batman. Casas draws the contradiction plainly: the heroes who occupy every inch of the cultural imagination offer this child no reflection of himself. A broad gestural brushstroke across the center of the canvas quotes the formal language of Roy Lichtenstein and Abstract Expressionism, implicating the art world's own hierarchies in the same whitewash his title names. Featured in Crystal Bridges' exhibition Men of Steel, Women of Wonder (February–April 2019), which examined artistic responses to the Superman and Wonder Woman archetypes, the work was subsequently acquired for the permanent collection in 2022 (accession no. 2022.32).

CAPTION: Mel Casas, Humanscape 70 (Comic Whitewash), 1973, acrylic on canvas, 72¾ × 97 in. Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas. © Mel Casas Family Trust.

Mel Casas, HUMANSCAPE 70 (COMIC WHITEWASH), 1973. Acrylic on canvas, 72¾ × 97 in. Collection: Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas. Acquired 2022, accession no. 2022.32.

Under the four statutory factors of 17 U.S.C. § 107, this image is reproduced for purposes of criticism, commentary, and educational documentation on the official biographical website of the artist; its purpose and character are nonprofit and educational. The work is a published artwork of established cultural and historical significance that has been widely reproduced in scholarly and institutional contexts, and the single complete work is shown only for identification and critical discussion, with no portion isolated from its scholarly context. This use does not substitute for or compete with any commercial market for the original or licensed reproductions and instead supplements scholarly understanding; it is a fair use under 17 U.S.C. § 107.