Auction: 11:00 AM Central Time, Friday, October 31

Our curators picked their favorite items from our upcoming October 31 The Judson C. Ball & Nancy Sue Ball Collection of Mexican American Art Showcase Auction
| Aviva's Picks Aviva Lehmann | Senior Vice President, American Art
Lucinda Hinojos (La Morena) Untitled
This vivid colored pencil portrait by Lucinda Hinojos (La Morena) celebrates the Chicana spirit—bridging cultural pride and feminine power. With its Día de los Muertos imagery, bold palette, and pinup sensibility, the work nods to classic American pulp illustration while reclaiming that aesthetic through a distinctly Mexican American lens.
Lalo Cota Mickey Mouse, 2013
Lalo Cota's Mickey Mouse is bold, irreverent, and unapologetically subversive—a Chicana reimagining of America's most sanitized icon. With swagger and bite, Cota flips the symbol of corporate innocence into a figure of rebellion, exposing the grit and guts beneath the gloss of American pop culture.
| Walter's Picks Walter Ramirez | Senior Consignment Director, Urban Art, New York
Carlos Almaraz 1980 Chicano Wearing a 1960 Mask, 1979
In 1980 Chicano Wearing a 1960 Mask, Carlos Almaraz turns his attention to the figure, using pastel to explore identity, disguise, and cultural expression. The masked subject feels both vulnerable and defiant, an embodiment of the tension between public persona and private self. Almaraz's pastel work is fluid yet deliberate: colors blend and bleed at the edges, creating a sense of motion and psychological unease. The soft layering of pigment blurs the boundary between the mask and the face beneath it, suggesting the shifting nature of Chicano identity and self-representation. Through this piece, Almaraz transforms pastel into a vehicle for emotion and meaning, its texture mirroring the complexity of identity itself.
Chaz Bojorquez Los Avenues Skull, 1986
Chaz Bojórquez's Los Avenues Skull is a powerful charcoal drawing on tissue paper that captures the spirit of East Los Angeles street life while showing how far Bojórquez had come as an artist. The skull, one of his recurring symbols, connects back to his earlier Señor Suerte design, once seen across city walls as a sign of strength, luck, and cultural identity. In this quieter, more intimate version, Bojórquez brings that same energy onto fragile tissue paper, showing his mastery of line and shading while keeping the raw emotion of his graffiti roots. His background in Chicano calligraphy and Asian brushwork comes through in the careful movement of each stroke, turning what could have been a street tag into something deeply personal and reflective. Created at a time when graffiti was just starting to be recognized as fine art, Los Avenues Skull stands as a bridge between worlds, a work that honors his community while claiming space for it inside museums and galleries.
| Ezriel's Picks Ezriel Wilson | Cataloguer, Fine Arts, Dallas
Eric Cox Until After She Sings, 2016
Artist Eric Cox's ethereal mixed media work on panel transported me to another realm in this auction. Until After She Sings, from Cox's Dream State series, stems from his deep fascination with the human condition. In the piece, a partially formed figure emerges through only a few facial features, enticing the viewer to imagine the rest. The figure is haloed by a sharp white silhouette that dissipates like the smoke curling from the cigarette in hand. A single eye gazes back, evoking the surrealist spirit-a movement equally captivated by dreams, the irrational, and the unconscious. Blooms of color overlap and interplay like a Kubrickian dream sequence, heightening the work's cinematic tension. Certainly, it is a captivating work for any dreamer.
Unknown Artist Mother Earth
Sometimes even unknown artists leave us wanting more. The work Mother Earth caught my eye with its powerful symbolism and the masterful execution of this magnificent watercolor on paper. In the piece, the head of a female figure wears a crown of tree branches that seem to burst frantically from her hair. She gazes directly at the viewer, one eyebrow slightly raised-as if questioning. Black drips of watercolor run down her face like streaked eye makeup, heavily applied around her lids. Was she crying? Is she hurt? What can we, the viewers, really do? The artist leaves these questions open, creating a meditative space to contemplate our impact on not only the physical world but also the psychological landscape. A wonderful and thought-provoking addition to grow any collection.
View these and other vibrant art pieces in our October 31 The Judson C. Ball & Nancy Sue Ball Collection of Mexican American Art Showcase Auction. Sincerely,
|  | Aviva Lehmann Senior Vice President, American Art AvivaL@HA.com (212) 486-3530
|  | Walter Ramirez Senior Consignment Director, Urban Art, New York WalterR@HA.com (212) 486-3521
|  | Ezriel Wilson Cataloguer, Fine Arts, Dallas EzrielW@HA.com (214) 409-1112