Mr. Nice

Gronk

East Los Angeles-based Chicano artist Gronk, born Glugio Nicandro in 1954, uses the combined influences of 1970s New Wave and punk art scenes, the Chicano anti-war movement of the late 1960s, and his love of theater design and mural art to create “Mr. Nice,” a small display of the hyper detailed, energetic imagery he is known for. Despite its relatively restrained format, this etching and aquatint - as with all mediums in which he worked - is explosive.

Gronk was a founding member of the art group “Asco,” formed by Chicano and Mexican American artists living in tumultuous east Los Angeles in 1971. Translating to “nausea” in English, Asco was formed out of a desire to expel the anger and fear of the social and political persecution of themselves and their families, and the disproportionate amount of young Chicano and Black men being drafted into the deeply unpopular Vietnam war.

Gronk eventually became a respected artist across many mediums, designing sets for operas and other collaborative works, creating murals throughout LA and beyond, and continuing to uphold the importance of Mexican American/Chicano artists in the American art world.