Yolanda Margarita López (November 1, 1942 – September 3, 2021) was an American painter, printmaker, educator, and film producer. She was known for her Chicana feminist works focusing on the experiences of Mexican-American women, often challenging the ethnic stereotypes associated with them. Lopez was recognized for her series of paintings which re-imagined the image of the Virgen de Guadalupe. Her work is held in several public collections including the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Early life and education Yolanda Margarita López was born on November 1, 1942, in San Diego, California, to Margaret Franco and Mortimer López. She was a third-generation Chicana. Her grandparents migrated from Mexico to the United States, crossing the Río Bravo river in a boat while avoiding gunfire from the Texas Rangers. López and her two younger siblings were raised by her mother and maternal grandparents in San Diego. After graduating from high school in Logan Heights in San Diego, she moved to San Francisco and took courses at the College of Marin and San Francisco State University. She became involved in a student movement called the Third World Liberation Front, which shut down SFSU as a part of the Third World Liberation Front strikes of 1968 She also became active in the arts. In 1969, López was instrumental in advertising the case of Los Siete de la Raza, in which seven young Latin American youths were accused of killing a police officer. Serving as the groups artistic director, she designed the poster "Free Los Siete," where the faces of these men are shown behind an inverted American flag that appears like prison bars. This poster was featured in the exhibition "¡Printing the Revolution!" at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, where curator Evelyn Carmen Ramos noted it had been "circulated at rallies and in newspapers, and galvanized the Mission District's Chicano and Latino community into a powerful social force with a noticeable presence in subsequent city politics." During the 1970s, López returned to San Diego, and enrolled at San Diego State University in 1971, graduating in 1975 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in painting and drawing. She then enrolled at the University of California, San Diego, receiving a Master of Fine Arts in 1979. While at the University of California, San Diego, her professors Allan Sekula and Martha Rosler encouraged her