Salvador Duran and El Tour de Tucson

At the end of October, 2023, Joe Pagac was replacing a well-known mural which had been in that spot for about six years. Below is a story of the new mural, photos of the old mural, and something surprising Joe did after he finished the new mural.

The original mural

First, the mural painted in 2017 by Diego Roa. It shows Tucson artist Salvador Duran:

Thanks to BG Boyd Photography and his mural database TucsonAZMurals.com for that photo (taken from https://tucsonazmurals.com/murals/salvador_duran.) It looks like someone may have painted something between Salvador's hands since the mural was created… an older closeup below doesn't have the blob.

You can see the mural in 2017, a photo of Salvador and a bit of his story, and more info, in the original post on this blog: Parking lot morphs into cracked earth.

The new mural is coming…

On October 31, 2023, Joe posted a photo to Facebook with his car in front of part of the new mural:



(If you can't see that, here's a link to the Facebook post.)

The new mural

I took these photos near sunrise on December 16, 2023:

Murals are usually replaced after some period of time. This one had been here six years. Still, I was a bit sad that the portrait of Salvador Duran was gone. So I was surprised and happy when I read on the Facebook group Tucson Murals and Street Art that Joe had painted the same portrait on the Toole Avenue side of Hotel Congress:

In case you'd like to see the original and Joe's re-creation side by side, here they are. As always, you can click on the (single) image below to see it and others much larger:

(The exposure on Joe's version — to the right — might not be correct. The bottom looks pretty dark to me.)