Cheech Marin’s Chicano Art Collection to Reside in Riverside This Fall

“I want to put as much art in there as we can acquire.”

Actor and comedian Cheech Marin, best known as one half of successful duo “Cheech and Chong,” announced the fall debut of his expansive art collection at a permanent home in a former Riverside public library. The Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art, Culture and Industry will feature more than 700 paintings, drawings, photographs and sculptures, including works by Gilbert “Magú” Luján, Frank Romero and Carlos Almaraz.

According to the New York Times, “Marin, buoyed by a burgeoning film career, made the leap from merely admiring Rembrandts and Vermeers in museums to acquiring work. A third-generation Mexican-American, he focuses on Chicano artists, and has amassed one of the largest such collections in the world.

“People hear ‘Chicano art’ and think it’s a guy sleeping under a cactus or something,” Marin said. But for him, it’s about seeking out the ‘sabor’—Spanish for flavor—of Mexican-American culture, in works by artists born in the United States and influenced by both their Mexican cultural heritage and their upbringing with Cheerios and Uncle Sam.”