Artists for Hispanic Heritage Month

20 Great Hispanic and Latino Artists

Hispanic Heritage Month runs from September 15 to October 15, landing right about when the art room has finally settled into a routine. It is a great stretch of the year to introduce students to artists from Mexico, the Caribbean, Central and South America, and Spain.

About one in four children in the United States is Hispanic or Latino. When the artists we study include people who share a student's language, a last name, or a grandmother's country, that student gets to hear something worth hearing: artists come from where I come from.

Hispanic, Latino, and Why the Month Starts on September 15

Students ask about the words, so it helps to have an answer ready. "Hispanic" signals a connection to Spain or to the Spanish language. "Latino" signals roots in Latin America and the Caribbean, and it leaves room for Indigenous, African, and Asian heritage alongside European ancestry. That is how the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Latino draws the line. Plenty of people prefer one word for themselves and not the other, which is worth telling a class outright.

It is also worth saying that this month covers more than twenty countries, and the art looks nothing alike from one to the next. 

The dates have a reason too, and it makes a nice five-minute map lesson. September 15 is the independence anniversary for Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. Mexico celebrates on September 16, Chile on September 18, and Belize on September 21.

Why These Artists Belong in Your Curriculum All Year

Hispanic Heritage Month is a great time to highlight and celebrate Hispanic and Latino artists, but it should not be the only time these artists are mentioned. Frida Kahlo is not exclusively a September artist. She is a self-portrait artist, and she belongs in the unit where you teach self-portraits, whenever that lands on your calendar.

I build a K–8 curriculum by deciding first what concept and skill each grade level needs, then choosing the artists who demonstrate it best. Working in that order is what keeps these artists from getting boxed into one four-week window and packed away again in October.

It also puts the focus where students can reach it. Kids are drawn to Diego Rivera because he painted enormous walls full of workers and machinery, and to Joaquín Torres-García because he drew symbols that are familiar to children. Start with the art. The history comes along with it, and it sticks better that way.

Here is a list of 20 Hispanic and Latino artists you could introduce during Hispanic Heritage Month and all through the rest of the year.

1. Amelia Peláez — Cuban (1896–1968)
2. Carlos Cruz-Diez — Venezuelan (1923–2019)
3. Carmen Herrera — Cuban American (1915–2022)
4. Carmen Lomas Garza — Mexican American (born 1948)
5. David Alfaro Siqueiros — Mexican (1896–1974)
6. Diego Rivera — Mexican (1886–1957)
7. Fernando Botero — Colombian (1932–2023)
8. Frida Kahlo — Mexican (1907–1954)
9. Jean-Michel Basquiat — American (Puerto Rican and Haitian heritage) (1960–1988)
10. Joan Miró — Spanish (Catalan) (1893–1983)
11. Joaquín Torres-García — Uruguayan (1874–1949)
12. José Clemente Orozco — Mexican (1883–1949)
13. Judith F. Baca — American (Chicana) (born 1946)
14. Leonora Carrington — British-born Mexican (1917–2011)
15. Marisol (Marisol Escobar) — Venezuelan American (1930–2016)
16. María Izquierdo — Mexican (1902–1955)
17. Pablo Picasso — Spanish (1881–1973)
18. Remedios Varo — Spanish-born Mexican (1908–1963)
19. Rufino Tamayo — Mexican (1899–1991)
20. Salvador Dalí — Spanish (Catalan) (1904–1989)

Teaching with Artist Slideshows

I use slideshows to introduce these artists to every grade, including Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, Joaquín Torres-García, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Pablo Picasso. Each one opens with a short, student-friendly biography and then moves into several slides of artwork to look at and talk about together, which keeps the art history portion of the month consistent from class to class.

Basquiat is also included in Black History Month lessons in February. He is the son of a Puerto Rican mother and a Haitian father, and he grew up in Brooklyn speaking Spanish, French, and English. He is a great example for students that a person's identity is not a single box, a person can belong fully to two heritage months at once.

Picasso is Spanish, born in Málaga. The federal observance does include Spain along with Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central and South America, so he fits the month as it is officially defined. I say plainly where he is from when I teach him, because the difference between Spain and Latin America is exactly the kind of thing students should be sorting out.

These slideshows are available in my Teachers Pay Teachers store individually, and they are also collected at a discount in my Artists with Hispanic Heritage slideshow bundle.

Three Art Projects, One for Each Grade Band

Frida Kahlo filled her self-portraits with the monkeys, parrots, and plants she lived with, and my youngest students take that same idea and put an animal friend of their own choosing beside them in the picture. It is a great introduction to self-portraits for K–2, and every portrait comes back with a different companion in it. View the blog post for Self-Portraits with Animal Friends here.

Basquiat-inspired scratch art is a perfect cross-curricular project when students are studying the human body in science. Basquiat's own fascination with anatomy started with a copy of Gray's Anatomy his mother gave him while he was recovering in the hospital, which is the detail students remember longest. View the blog post for Basquiat-inspired Scratch Art here.

Middle schoolers break a subject into planes and shade it with cross-hatching in the Picasso Cubism drawings, which is a great introduction to value for students who are convinced they cannot draw. View the blog post for Cubism Drawings inspired by Pablo Picasso here.

More Artist Resources

If you don’t have the spare time in your September schedule for full-period artist studies or projects, you can still celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month with my Famous Hispanic Artists coloring pages. This quick no-prep activity gives you four masterpieces to color by Kahlo, Rivera, Torres-García, and Picasso.

I also have a free Hispanic Heritage Month artist word search that works well for early finishers or the last ten minutes of a period, and it doubles as a preview of the artists you are about to cover. Students who have already met a few of the names get a little thrill of recognition, and the ones who have not are primed to learn about the artists later in the year.

If you're building an artist rotation and want somewhere to keep the whole plan, my free Artist Reference Guide lists 200 artists across eight centuries and six continents, with each one's years, nationality, style, and medium, plus a notes column for the ones you want to build a lesson around. Subscribe to the All About Art newsletter and it is yours.

Check out my posts about 20 Great African American Artists and 20 Great Women Artists as well to get a head start on your planning for February and March!

Click here for more K-8 Art Lessons inspired by great artists!