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Murals by Roberto de la Selva

A graphic: Uncovering the Work of Roberto de la Salva
A Hispanic Heritage Month logo graphic
In 1975 a group of CETA (Comprehensive Employment and Training Act) volunteers were tasked with various maintenance jobs in the Watchung Reservation, including the Deserted Village. The volunteers were assigned to remove the wallpaper from the walls of one of the houses, known today as House #7. While removing the wallpaper, the volunteers quickly discovered that beneath the wallpaper were brightly colored murals painted directly on the walls throughout the entirety of the house. Upon revealing what was hidden, speculation about who created the murals became the larger question, as the style appeared to be quite similar to known Mexican muralist Diego Rivera. Who was the artist? How and why did a house in the Deserted Village become home to them?
Born in León, Nicaragua in 1895, Roberto de la Selva relocated to Mexico City in 1921 in protest of the United States Marines occupation of Nicaragua. During his time in Mexico, he studied art at the San Carlos Academy of Fine Arts, working primarily in wood carving, a traditional Mexican artform. His work, as noted by the San Antonio Museum of Art, was rooted in the principles of Social Realism, which was an international movement that used art as a means to advocate for social and economic justice. While his bas-relief woodcarvings have been featured in several museum exhibits over the years, the murals that adorn the walls of House #7 in the Deserted Village are noted as the only existing examples of his work as a muralist.
Roberto de la Selva’s older brother, Salomón de la Selva was a poet, who also worked in Mexico and later the United States. The brothers lived together in New York for four years, likely during the mid to late 1920s, while Salomón was a university professor. It is through his brother that Roberto de la Selva likely met Diego Rivera, who illustrated his brother’s work El soldado desconocido (The Unknown Soldier), published in 1922. The brothers’ time in New York may have ultimately led Roberto to meet Edward Grassmann of Union County.