It is the start of Hispanic Heritage month and all this month we want to honor and highlight the contributions of the Latino community here in Houston.<\/p>\n
One artist, many may not know her name, broke barriers for Hispanic artists during a time of deep segregation in Houston.<\/p>\n
Her name is Theonis Contreras, born in Houston\u2019s 6th ward in 1913.<\/p>\n
She worked closely with Houston\u2019s first modern artist and founder of the Houston Museum of Fine Arts.<\/p>\n
Contreras\u2019 work is still displayed in Houston today.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat makes her so great that to me she was an aunt and my last memory of her was when I was 6 years old and she took me on a bus to go downtown to watch the movie Cinderella. We had no idea of what her history was, we had no idea she had studied under the most famous modern artist in the city of Houston,\u201d said David Contreras, the chair of Harris County Hispanic Cultural Heritage Commission.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe helped paint this mural that was a government project right after the depression and that is still there at the Ideson building and Emma Richardson Cherry actually painted a portrait of her,\u201d said Contreras.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe assisted Emma Richardson Cherry as a professional partner by painting the intricate floral designs of the murals that are still housed at the Ideson building at the Downtown library,\u201d added Contreras.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn 1934 she was the first Latina and person of Mexican descent recorded in major Texas art reference to ever work formally juried and exhibited at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston and she had work exhibited in 1935 and 1937,\u201d added Contreras.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think she should be remembered because she accomplished the American dream and they assimilated at a time that was very difficult to do so. I think it\u2019s an untold story that needs to be recognized because it is American history,\u201d said Contreras.<\/p>\n
You can check out the work of Theonis Contreras at the Julia Ideson building at the Downtown Houston Library.<\/p>\n
David Contreras says he hopes her story will instill civic pride and show current and future generations of Latinos, that they have deep foundational roots here in Houston.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 by KPRC Click2Houston – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It is the start of Hispanic Heritage month and all this month we want to honor and highlight…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":458062,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[2276,56,58,57,251,223],"class_list":["post-458061","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-hispanic-heritage-month","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news","tag-local-news","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/458061","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=458061"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/458061\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/458062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=458061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=458061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=458061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}