Ricardo Penalver: An American Surrealist, Activist, and San Francisco Cultural Figure
Early Life and Artistic Identity
Ricardo dedicated his life to art. A self-taught artist, he drew inspiration from masters such as Goya, van Gogh, Picasso, Dalí, Matisse, Magritte, and El Greco. He skillfully incorporated echoes of their work into a style that was unmistakably his own—uniquely Penalver—and established himself as a quintessential surrealist artist of his generation.
The Penalver family had a rich history shaped by adventure, faith, creativity, and an independent spirit. Several of Ricardo’s older siblings pursued artistic endeavors, most notably Ross, who inspired Ricardo to begin painting as a child. Ross Penalver’s work was collected by actor Edward G. Robinson, among others.
Two of Ross’s paintings, Statuesque and White Stallions, are featured here. In Statuesque, Ross demonstrates a refined treatment of form. Ricardo echoes that sensibility in Monk 1, while developing a sculptural expression that is distinctly his own.
Ricardo was born on April 4, 1937, in San Antonio, Texas. His father, Manolo, named him Santana Penalver (pronounced Pen-yal-vair). The family traced its ancestry to the Penalver region of Spain and the city of Santander. In keeping with family tradition, his full name incorporated his mother’s maiden name, Villanueva, as well as the saint’s name associated with his birthday: Ricardo Santana Villanueva Penalver. Santana was a private family name, and he later chose to be known publicly as Ricardo. That name became central to his identity as an artist, community advocate, and cultural contributor.
Family, Dance, and Creative Influences
As a teenager in the 1950s, Ricardo spent much of his free time in Dallas, Texas, with his eldest sister, Rebecca. Their close relationship introduced him to performance culture, dance, and the expressive energy that would later appear throughout his art.
Rebecca, who performed under the stage name Rita Ravell, built a career as a burlesque model and dancer. She was billed as The Latin Temptress, The Mexican Spitfire, and The Hot Tamale. Her artistic independence, movement, costume, and stage presence helped shape Ricardo’s lifelong fascination with dance and theatrical expression.
Rita Ravell was later honored during Hispanic Heritage Month and recognized by The Burlesque Hall of Fame in Las Vegas, where one of her dresses is displayed. Her story adds important context to Ricardo Penalver’s creative environment and the family’s broader artistic legacy. The advertisement featured here is for the Rendezvous Attractions, Farthest North Entertainment Center in the World.
Surrounded by performers and ambitious working artists, Ricardo developed independence at a young age. He was molded, galvanized, and exposed to flamboyant lifestyles. He sold risqué drawings to the men who came to watch the dancers, learned to box and was a contender in the Golden Gloves Welterweight Division in Texas in 1953.
Dance remained a powerful influence in Ricardo’s life. His creative movement style reflected the performers he watched as a young man, and he continued to value dance as a form of joy, freedom, and expression throughout his life.
Prison Years, Education, and Early Artwork
In 1957, Ricardo was arrested for cannabis after taking responsibility for his older brother, who had a criminal history. Despite Ricardo’s clean record, he received a harsh sentence that deeply affected his family, especially his mother.
Ricardo was incarcerated at Soledad Prison School from 1958 to 1959, where he studied art and psychology. In 1960, he was transferred to San Quentin. From 1961 to 1965, he served as Vice Chairperson of the Inmate Council and met California Senator George Moscone.
During his time at San Quentin, Ricardo received painting privileges in an auxiliary building. In 1962, he created Especial Today, an oil painting on wood that features carved jail-cell bars and light from the building where he painted.
Ricardo spent his remaining prison years at Folsom and Soledad. The Soledad Prison Guard who bought Especial Today also collected four other original oils by Ricardo.
Especial Today would be given to Ms. Bryson, in 2005, by the guards niece, who originally received it from her uncle as a graduation gift, to ensure it's legacy and enjoyment for all.
San Francisco, Activism, and Community Work
After his parole in 1966, Ricardo built a new life around creativity, learning, and service. He pursued painting and psychology while becoming a familiar presence in San Francisco’s vibrant music, art, anti-war, and civil rights communities. As his artistic voice grew, so did his dedication to people too often overlooked. He also shared a close friendship with George Moscone, who later became mayor of San Francisco.
That spirit of service shaped Ricardo’s professional life as well. He brought compassion, patience, and a gift for connecting with people to his work as a director, counselor, and interpreter for organizations including the City of San Francisco Public Health Department, Themis House, and the Synanon Foundation. The photo was taken in front of the Public Health building in the Civic Center with his associates.
Ricardo never missed an opportunity to help people in need. In “A New Kind of Place,” he is pictured alongside Dr. Wilson and Yvonne Hubert of the Department of Public Health’s Bureau of Alcoholism as they clean up an old hotel on the site of what is now the Moscone Center. Together, they helped transform the building into a welcoming place where people struggling with alcoholism could find temporary housing, counseling, and hope.
At the same time, he continued to pursue his art. One of his first independent exhibitions was held at the Stone Gallery in San Francisco in 1971, where two of his paintings, La Familia and Hungry Children, were sold and later acquired by Ms. Bryson.
Because Ricardo was a parolee, travel outside California was initially prohibited. In 1969, with help from Senator George Moscone, he was discharged and released by order of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County. This allowed him to move to New York, where he became Treatment Director of the Horizon Project in 1970 and collaborated with Mayor John Lindsay on drug and alcohol issues.
Music, Posters, and Cultural Contributions
It was during this time that Jorge Santana attended one of Ricardo’s seminars at Horizon Projects in New York and later performed live in Central Park. This photo of Jorge was taken by Ricardo in 1972.
Jorge’s performance and his friendship made Ricardo homesick for San Francisco, the music and art scene, and he had tired of New York. So, in the Fall of 1972, he drove his Ford Fastback Mustang non-stop back to the City he loved!
Back in San Francisco, Ricardo resumed counseling and social involvement. He told Senator Moscone about his return and offered his support. Loyal to Moscone, Ricardo actively helped him throughout his mayoral campaign and served as his source of city updates.
Mayor Moscone looked out for Ricardo, and when he could he referred him to City programs like the Multi-Cultural Program servicing the San Francisco Community as an Interpreter at San Francisco General Hospital where he could work part-time and continue to paint. They stayed close until the Mayor of San Francisco George Moscone was assassinated in 1978; it would be eight months later that Ricardo would be shot, robbed, and paralyzed ...
The Latin, Afro-Cuban, jazz, and rock sounds of Santana, Francisco Aguabella, Pete Escovedo, Malo, Azteca, Cal Tjader, Mongo Santamaría, Luis Gasca, and Miles Davis shaped the San Francisco Bay Area cultural scene that surrounded Ricardo. Music, street posters, community events, and live performance became important parts of his creative world.
You might find Cal Tjader playing the vibes at The Orphanage or Luis Gasca's Latin Beat at the Great American Music Hall with Mongo Santamaria on congas, while Miles Davis's trumpet was piercing the smoked filled room of Keystone Korner.
For the In This Korner Miles Davis poster, Ricardo used portrait photographs of Miles that he took of him while Miles was visiting him at his San Francisco home in April 1973.
A former commitment to collaborate with Victor Alman altered Ricardo's original vision of his poster. However, the photos taken by Alman of the South American citizens was approved by Miles and Ricardo created a compelling poster that is treasured by collectors.
The center photo of Miles is one of the surviving black-and-white portraits. It can be seen in the Gallery of Community Service, Street Flyers, Posters, and Musical Greats, 1968–1974.
These happenings were promoted at the street level by radio, word of mouth and of course posters which were prominently displayed in store windows and affixed to walls, poles, and billboards throughout the area. Ricardo contributed his art to these efforts on many occasions.
Ricardo created posters and street flyers for musicians like Miles Davis, Cal Tjader, Mongo Santamaria, Malo, Santana, Luis Gasca and for his company, Huracan Productions. Ricardo produced the popular song Suavecito at Fantasy Records in Berkeley. He designed Malo’s logo, sold his art successfully, and commissioned his work.
The poet Dorinda Morales dedicated her poem La Nina Lina en East LA (1971 Chicano Moratorium) to Ricardo at the LULAC Foundation Opening Ceremony in San Francisco, declaring Penalver Power!
Love, Partnership, and a Life-Altering Injury
In April 1974, Ricardo met Alexa Bryson, who became his lifelong companion and partner. Their relationship grew from a shared love of art, dance, and idealism. Between his commitment to Alexa and his activism, Ricardo often wished for more uninterrupted time to paint, saying, “All I want to do is sit and paint.”
Fate had a different path for the loving couple, with a tragic and defining blow on August 11, 1979, Ricardo's life was changed permanently. While trading and selling gold bullion in San Francisco, with the sole purpose of buying painting supplies and securing a place to paint, Ricardo was shot five times and robbed. He was taken by ambulance to San Francisco General Hospital where the trauma team of doctors and surgeons recognized him. They had become friendly with Ricardo while he was working as an Interpreter, and they did everything they could and saved his life.
He would remain wheelchair bound until his death in July of 1995. Ironically, the artist who deplored violence while devoting his energies to peace, dance and art was rendered a paraplegic.
Ricardo called August 11, 1979, his "other birthday". He was forced to re-learn the simplest tasks. Losing the use of his dominant right-hand for an extended period after his injury; by virtue of his tenacity, Ricardo taught himself to paint left-handed while sitting in his wheelchair.
Resilience, Wheelchair Art, John Lennon and Creative Renewal
His former way of life was lost to him forever! No longer able to dance or keep his earlier level of activism, only one channel remained as an outlet for his boundless passion, his art. Thus began an astounding and prodigious outpouring of remarkable art. In later years, Ricardo said the devastating catastrophe had “confined him to his destiny”.
While still recovering in the hospital, Ricardo would give rise to First Day on a Wheelchair, a pen and ink drawing on cardboard in October 1979. This was his very first drawing after his paralysis, and it is a touching and graphic testimony to the challenges of his redefined reality.
Pain was his constant companion. He could only work for brief periods before succumbing to his physical limitations. Often, he worked urgently, quickly, as if he was seeking to pack as much expression into his work as he could while coping with the pain.
If he could not get to his easel quickly, he would grab an envelope and pen. His need to paint and create was so intense one feels he would have scratched his art on a wall if necessary!
There were dark times, times of loneliness, regret, and despair. “Be careful what you wish for ...”, Ricardo would say, remembering his cry that he just wanted to sit and paint. Works done during this period are stirring creations which express the ineffable sadness of all humans thwarted in their desires. As powerful as these works are, their counterparts are their equals.
Another senseless tragedy occurred on December 8, 1980, a little more than a year from the time Ricardo began his long recovery and adjustment process. Horrified and deeply saddened by the assassination of former Beatle John Lennon, Ricardo embarked upon a month-long tribute which yielded more than a dozen unique images of the fallen artist.
Like a flower to the sunlight, Ricardo struggled to bring back the vitality and joy of his former life. For years after his paralysis, he worked on a smaller scale, painting in bed, on his lap, and from his wheelchair. He favored watercolors and inks because their fluidity allowed him to work within his physical limits while preserving movement, color, and emotional immediacy.
In the late eighties, his friend and painting companion Fernando Durate asked Ricardo, “Why don’t you paint large paintings anymore?”
Ricardo responded by explaining that he lost his ability to balance if he reached too far due to his T-10 Spinal Cord injury. He told him that he would love to paint large again, but he did not know how to make that happen.
The next time Fernando came for a visit, he brought brush extensions for Ricardo enabling him to paint on a large scale again while sitting in his wheelchair.
Seated Man Dancing, oil on paper, 44x33, May 1988, is a product of this ingenuity and an articulation of his personal renaissance. The work is the voice of his resiliency and indomitable spirit. Ricardo shares the sheer joy and precious nature of life itself! It is his declaration of ultimate triumph over enormous physical and psychological obstacles.
The unique signature of Ricardo’s Art is distinctive with multiple, repetitive themes. Ubiquitous is the irony and interplay of dramatic movement, energy, balance, and equilibrium. One also sees strong depictions of wisdom gained from his juxtaposition of freedom and confinement.
Ricardo uses recurrent objects and subjects to symbolize the dominant themes; dancers for movement; the spinal column and central nervous system, often balanced on wheels, for energy; jugglers, gumballs and spheres of all kinds representing the cosmos, space, balance, the human cell, and equilibrium.
His sense of humor and facetiousness bring us clowns, while his quirky and colorful owls sagely observe.
One may assume that the monks he painted were symbolic of confinement; ironically his early monks pre-date his paralysis.
Artifacts from his surroundings often appear, the deer-foot stool, the brown shawl, the red vase, birds of paradise, and the matador’s hat. The dancing figures, sometimes accompanied by torsos with no-arms and no-legs are significant and appear throughout his body of work. Ricardo would laugh and proclaim, “No Arms-No Legs, Can’t Paint-Can’t Dance!” This phrase underscored his sense of gratitude for the gifts he was spared.
His art is characterized by his brilliant use of color and texture, combining several mediums in most of his paintings. His shadowing techniques and delicate use of watercolors and inks are magnificent!
Ricardo was often asked, “Why do you paint so many self-portraits?” His reply, “I paint myself because I am always available and I am very reasonable.” Similarly, Frida Kahlo responded, “I paint myself because I am so often alone and because I am the subject I know best.”
Ricardo's Art is testimony to his wit and playful sense of humor, yet it elevates our consciousness and opens our minds to a universe full of possibilities. It attests to the human condition, the pain, the joy, but most of all the glories and resilience of the human spirit.
