Melesio "Mel" Casas (November 24, 1929 – November 30, 2014) was an American artist, activist, writer and teacher. He is best known for a cycle of complex, large-scale paintings characterized by cutting wit, incisive cultural and political analysis, and verbal and visual puns that he called Humanscapes, which were painted between 1965 and 1989. Only a few of these Humanscapes address Chicano topics, though they are his most famous paintings, and "have appeared repeatedly in books and exhibitions" and "are rightfully regarded as formative icons of the Chicano art movement." Many of the Humanscape paintings, by contrast, are little known, as is much of the work Casas produced in the following quarter century.
Journalists frequently note that Casas uses paintings to "address cultural stereotypes." However, few of his Humanscape paintings (only six) explicitly treat Chicano topics, and few of those treat stereotypes: "Casas rarely dealt with ethnicity or stereotypes in an explicit manner in his 150+ Humanscape cycle of paintings (1965-1989). Two of his greatest paintings Humanscape 62 (Brownies of the Southwest) (1970) and Humanscape 68 (Kitchen Spanish) (1973), are brilliant and complex expositions of stereotypic attitudes. His Southwestern Clichés, the last 35 of his Humanscape paintings, of course deal with clichés, but only two include stereotypic images: Humanscape 135 (#2 Mexican Plate), 1984; and Humanscape 145 (SW Cliché), 1987." It has been argued that, given the broad range of his subject matter, Casas should "also be regarded as a major American artist."Casas' work has been collected by the San Antonio Museum of Art, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art (Bentonville, Arkansas). In 2018, two of his large paintings were purchased for the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center in San Antonio. His work is also held in national and international private collectors. Casas' Humanscape paintings can be broken down into several topics, each of which follows a serial progression. Casas, who served as president of the Con Safo art group (1971–73), was a well known teacher, writer, theorist, and public intellectual whose business card listed him as a "cultural adjuster." At San Antonio College, Casas "taught an entire generation of artists in San Antonio, many of whom went on to have successful careers as artists, teachers, gallerists, and arts administrators."Casas' "Brown Paper Report," written in 1971, is an important Chicano and American cultural document. Casas emphasized the importance of "self-determination" and equality for Chicanos/as. Regarded nationally as one of the foundational figures of Chicano Art, Casas has also been called "the most influential of those artists who spent their careers in Texas during the second half of the twentieth century." Casas felt that once artists had a fair chance to exhibit in the United States, they would be accepted as American artists and become part of "Americana."
