At 93 years old, LA artist who helped popularize Day of the Dead gets her first solo show

The Mexican tradition of Day of the Dead, the holiday that honors loved ones who have passed, is by now internationally renowned.

The 2017 Pixar animated film Coco — inspired by the holiday — is available in nearly 50 languages. The calavera, a skull that’s a common symbol for Day of the Dead, can be found on all sorts of products including T-shirts and bags. But for most of the holiday’s history, it was not well-known outside of Mexico or the Mexican communities abroad that continued to celebrate it.

Day of the Dead started to emerge in popular culture in the 1970s during the Chicano movement and one artist who was critical in that transformation was Ofelia Esparza. Today, Esparza is 93 and on Oct. 18, the Vincent Price Museum in East L.A. will exhibit her first solo show "Ofelia Espa