Rini Templeton
(1935-1986)
She dedicated her life
and art to the people.
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- Born in Buffalo, NY to a middle class family in 1935.
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From 1947 to 1949 she was a "Quiz Kid" on NBC's popular radio -- and later television -- show. The program was built around a panel of prodigies who answered questions in various fields. Rini's areas of expertise were Shakespeare, music, and baseball. In 1949 she published Chicagoverse, a collection of poems.
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Early on in life Rini was a rebel. She received a full scholarship to the University of Chicago Laboratory School but she did not receive her degree because she refused to take physical education. From 1951 to 1952, she took graduate courses at the University of Chicago, where she was on the editorial board of the newspaper, The Maroon.
- Decided to hitchike around the US (1952-1954) and travel Europe (1955-1957) On her return to Chicago she apprenticed in the print shop of Philip Reed, a book designer, illustrator and skilled wood engraver.
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She settled in Taos, New Mexico where, in 1966 she married John DePuy, an artist. (later separated) She joined the Taos Moderns, an artist group. Her drawings featured black ink, woodcuts and silkscreens. She worked as the staff artist for El Grito del Norte and The New Mexico Review and Legislative Journal. She became active in the Chicano Movement, advocating for the welfare of people of Mexican descent.
- In 1959 she was in Havana, Cuba having entered the country from Mexico with a group of students. Following the fall of the Batista regime she remained in Cuba (1961-1964) founding a printmaking workshop and becoming active in the nation's national literacy campaign.
- A fluent Spanish speaker, she traveled extensively living and working in Mexico and Central America. At the time of her untimely death in 1986, she was alternating between New Mexico and Mexico. In Mexico City, advocating for people left homeless by that city's devastating earthquakes, she died alone in her one-room home, age 51, cause unknown.
- "For over 20 years Rini Templeton created art for picket signs, newsletters, announcements, posters and illustrations. Her art work documented the struggles that took place during the turbulent 1960s and beyond. Her drawings have been used thousands of times by different movements and grassroots organizations."
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"She made thousands of unsigned drawings to be used freely in the cause -- whether it was a workers' strike, a community struggle to save a school or hospital, peasants battling for land, a celebration of International Women's Day, a march for peace." (The Art of Rini Templeton, Where there is Art there is Struggle; forward by John Nichols. Seattle, Real Comet Press, 1987)
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"Everyone who knew her said there was no one like Rini. She was, from an early age, and remained, fiercely independent. She was an individual who was staunchly private, forever deflecting any attention to herself personally, while devoting herself freely to cause after cause. She gave her work away to whatever cause she was currently involved with. Her work manages to straddle the tension between work that is created solely to carry political messages and work that is art. Hers is both."
-- Craig Smith, a writer in Albuquerque, NM, where he is at work on the book I Dreamed I Saw Joe Hill Last Night: The Evolution of a Classic American Song.
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(We Are the Boat)
by
Pete Seeger & Friends
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Sources from which I summarized, paraphrased or quoted directly: riniart.com/biography.html; Wikipedia; Women's Plaza of Honor, Univ. of Arizona (on-line); encyclopedia.com; Rini Templeton Papers, UCSB Library Guide; The Art of Rini Templeton, Real Comet Press. - Saul Schniderman, Editor
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