The Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture of the Riverside Art Museum

On June 18, 2022, The Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture of the Riverside Art Museum ("The Cheech") opened to the public in Riverside, California, the "City of Arts & Innovation." Founded as a 501c3 in 1954, Riverside Art Museum (RAM) is one museum with two locations: The Cheech (which opened in 2022) and The Julia Morgan Building (which opened in 1967). RAM integrates art into the lives of people in a way that engages, inspires, and builds community by providing high-quality exhibitions and art education programs that instill a lifelong love of the arts. It was RAM’s desire to further engage and serve the community that was the impetus to create The Cheech, a public-private partnership between RAM, the City of Riverside, and comedian Cheech Marin—one of the world’s foremost collectors of Chicano art. Best known as one half of the hilariously irreverent, satirical, counter-culture, no-holds-barred duo Cheech & Chong, Cheech is also recognized as a preeminent Chicano art advocate. In the mid-1980s, Cheech began developing what is now arguably the finest private collection of Chicano art. Marin’s gift of approximately 500 works by Chicana/o/x artists—including the likes of Carlos Almaraz, Judithe Hernández, Gilbert “Magú” Luján, Sandy Rodriguez, Frank Romero, and Patssi Valdez—to RAM’s permanent collection makes the museum a repository for one of the largest holdings of Chicana/o/x art.