del Solar (Daniel) papers, 1950-2012

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Summary

Title:
Daniel del Solar papers
Dates:
1950-2012
Abstract:
Daniel del Solar (June 13, 1940 - January 13, 2012) was a prominent Latino media activist, photographer, videographer, documentarian, and poet. He worked with KQED-TV in San Francisco, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and WYBE-TV in Philadelphia. His papers document his life story using the media available during his lifetime. There are years of digital photos, video, self-printed books and audio files. They chronicle his life while documenting the use of emerging technologies used in social movements concerned with Latin America and the United States. Venezuela, Nicaragua, Chile and Mexico are covered. Through his mother, artist Luchita Hurtado, he had connections to many artists, including Hurtado's two former husbands: Dynaton Movement artist Lee Mullican and Surrealist artist Wolfgang Paalen, as well as family friends Fresco artist Lucienne Bloch and Stephen Pope Dimitroff.
Extent:
59.79 Linear Feet (143 boxes: 10 cartons, 22 flat boxes, 45 shoeboxes, 7 clamshells, 58 document boxes, 1 half document box, posters, born digital and audiovisual materials)
Language:
The collection is mostly in English with some Spanish language materials.
Preferred citation:

[Identification of Item], Daniel del Solar Papers, CEMA 145. Department of Special Research Collections, UC Santa Barbara Library, University of California, Santa Barbara.

Background

Scope and content:

Del Solar's papers cover Latin American interests in the political and artistic area from the 1950s to the 2000s. Public broadcasting, U.S. activities in Latin America, and Latin American politics are mixed in with his personal daily activities. Del Solar was part of the early vanguard of minorities involved with public broadcasting in the United States. Summits and conferences with African Americans involved in Public Broadcasting and writing are also recorded in his papers with videos and photos. Del Solar's exploration of his life, his work and passions are expressed through the many media modes and creative avenues available during his lifetime.

Materials in this collection include biographical materials, a vast amount of photographic materials, scrapbooks, journals, planners, audiovisual materials, political ephemera, Mexican antiquities, exhibition materials, and letters and postcards.

Biographical / historical:

Daniel del Solar (June 13, 1940 - January 13, 2012) was a prominent Latino media activist, photographer, videographer, documentarian, and poet who succeeded in contributing a remarkable amount to the Latino culture throughout his life. Born to the Venezuelan painter Luchita Hurtado Mullican and the Chilean Time Magazine journalist Daniel del Solar, del Solar grew up in Mexico, New York, Mill Valley, and Santa Monica, California, where he graduated from Santa Monica High School before attending Harvard University and going on to establish a career in public media.

In the early 1970s, he joined the Berkeley KPFA-FM Comunicación Aztlán Collective. This was an offshoot of the Freedom Archives, an organization committed to the preservation and distribution of over 5,000 hours of audiotape recordings from the late 1960s to the mid-1990s focused on social and cultural transformation. By the mid-1970s, he became the National Director of Training and Development at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in Washington D.C. He worked with KQED-TV as Community Resources Coordinator for "Open Studio," an experiment giving more people access to the tools of media production, and served as General Manager of KALQ-FM in San Francisco from 1985 to 1992 as well as General Manager of WYBE-TV in Philadelphia from 1992 to 1995. He was also on the national board of Citizens for Independent Public Broadcasting and was Development Director of the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts.

Settling in the Bay Area, del Solar actively participated for the next four decades in politics and art, writing poetry and documenting the movement towards progressive public media in the area. He co-produced a weekly radio program entitled "Reflecciónes de la Raza," which aired on KPFA-FM, and contributed to the current KPFA weekly program "La Raza Chronicles," which follows Latin political culture. He was a founding co-editor of "Tin-Tan," a Chicano/Latino cultural magazine in San Francisco, contributed to the literary magazine El Tecolote Literario, and co-produced "Chile: Promise of Freedom," an audio CD distributed on worldwide radio by the Freedom Archives. His photos have appeared online and in books, including one entitled The "Woman Factor" in the Stepwells of Gujarat, written by his friend Purnima Bhatt.

Perhaps one of del Solar's most enduring legacies was his involvement in many Latin American social justice and solidarity movements. His involvement was on a somewhat personal level, as one of his cousins in Chile disappeared during the reign of military dictatorship following Allende, and the junta in Santiago had one of his friends killed in Washington. He traveled widely, reporting on events in Cuba, Chile, and Nicaragua in addition to the work of Venezuelan leftist leader Hugo Chavez.

Del Solar died in Oakland, California at the age of 71 after a long battle with metastatic prostate cancer. His marriage to Diane Diamond ended in divorce, and his second wife, Susan Miriam Castelan, died November 22, 2003. He has four half-brothers, John and Matt Mullican and Jim and Rodrigo Gill. His mother passed away in 2020.

Acquisition information:
Donated by estate executor Ana Luisa Cardona, October 2012. An additional donation of video interviews with his half-brother Rodrigo del Solar-Gill was donated by Rodrigo on April 4, 2014.
Arrangement:

The collection is arranged in 11 series:

  • Series I, Biographical Materials
  • Series II, Correspondence
  • Series III, Professional Files
  • Series IV, Written Works and Research
  • Series V, Photographic Materials
  • Series VI, Scrapbooks
  • Series VII, Audio Recordings
  • Series VIII, Moving Images
  • Series IX, Born-Digital
  • Series X, Realia and Ephemera
  • Series XI, Posters

Rules or conventions:
Describing Archives: A Content Standard

About this collection guide

Collection Guide Author:
Original finding aid was prepared by Callie Bowdish; finding aid was updated by Holly Snyder, 2026.
Date Encoded:
This finding aid was produced using ArchivesSpace on 2026-04-28 12:02:20 -0700 .

Access and use

Terms of access:

Property rights to the collection and physical objects belong to the Regents of the University of California, acting through the Department of Special Research Collections at the UCSB Library. All requests to reproduce, publish, quote from, or otherwise reuse collection materials must be submitted in writing to the Department of Special Research Collections, UCSB Library at special@library.ucsb.edu. Credit shall be given as follows: Copyright, Regents of the University of California, acting through the Department of Special Research Collections, UCSB Library. If use restrictions or other concerns exist, consult with supervisor on appropriate note

Preferred citation:

[Identification of Item], Daniel del Solar Papers, CEMA 145. Department of Special Research Collections, UC Santa Barbara Library, University of California, Santa Barbara.

Location of this collection:
UC Santa Barbara Library
Santa Barbara, CA 93106-9010, US
Contact:
(805) 893-3062
special@library.ucsb.edu
Website