Náñez-Woodward Collection of Panamanian Popular Art

Peter Szok is professor of history at Texas Christian University (TCU). Szok received a Ph.D in modern Latin American history from Tulane University in 1998. It was in New Orleans that Szok discovered an appreciation and desire to better understand Afro-descendent traditions in the Americas. Thus came the inspiration for his work in Panama. With the support from TCU and Eastern Kentucky University, along with several grants from the Fullbright program, Szok went to Panama every year for about a decade to conduct the research which is presented in his book Wolf Tracks: Popular Art and Re-Africanization in Twentieth-Century Panama published in 2012.

The popular art included in this collection consists of art produced by urban, working-class painters. They draw on tactics typical of Black, proletariat expression, associated with Caribbean festival traditions, and decorate Panama City's cantinas, barbershops, restaurants, and diablo rojo buses. The old school buses were imported from the United States and provided public transportation in Colón and Panama City. Their owners hired the artists to attract customers with eye-catching depictions of singers and actors, brassy phrases, and representations of exotic panoramas. The red devils boasted powerful stereo systems and, for decades, dominated Panama's urban environment. In late 2010, after a long series of accidents, President Ricardo Martinelli initiated the removal of the diablos rojos from Panama City and their replacement with a network of corporate managed buses. For this reason, the practice of hand-painted decorations has entered into decline in many other venues.