Judy Baca is an American Chicana artist, activist, and professor, best known for her large-scale public murals. Her piece the Great Wall of Los Angeles is a half-mile long mural on the ethnic history of California and incorporated the work of hundreds of people including ethnic scholars, area youths, staff, and artists. More recently, Baca created the mural World Wall: A Vision of the Future Without Fear, which addresses the issues of war, peace, cooperation, and interdependence. Baca is the co-founder and artistic director of the community arts center, California-based Social and Public Art Resource Center (SPARC) and founded the city of Los Angeles mural program. Baca is also a committed educator and has taught at the University of California Irvine, California State University, Monterey Bay, and the University of California, Los Angeles.

For her globally recognized work and excellence in teaching, Baca has received numerous awards, including the Liberty Hill Foundation’s Creative Vision Award, National Association of Art Educator’s award for Educator of the Year, National Hispanic Magazine’s Lifetime Achievement Award, the University of California Studies Consortium Award, and the Outstanding Latina in the Fine and Performing Arts Award from the American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education. Baca has also received Rockefeller and Guggenheim Foundation Fellowships and served as Harvard University’s Master Artist and Senior Scholar.