Virginia Romero

Who is Virginia Romero?

Virginia Maria Romero is a religious artist and one of few non-Hispanic artists to master traditional New Mexican santero techniques. She was born to William Adelbert Phillip Holley and Victoria Theresa Mucha on 16 March 1952 in Sheffield Lake, Ohio, where she grew up as Ginny Holley. Her father was the son of William Holley, Sr. and Agnes Gifford Holley, to whom he was born on 28 November 1913. William, Sr.'s parents were Charles Holley and Katherine McCrone Holley who was from Dublin, Ireland. Her distant Irish ancestry is one of the principal inspirations for Romero's religious artwork. Romero's mother, Victoria Theresa Mucha Holley, the eighth of nine children who survived childhood, was born on 4 October 1916 to Józef Mucha and Agnieszka Szymezyk Mucha in Lorain, Ohio. Józef, a native of Russ, Poland, was born on 21 May 1883. He immigrated to the United States in 1896 where he found work as a shipyard worker in Lorain. Agnieszka was a native of Austria, Poland, where she had been born on 21 January 1882. Józef and Agnieszka wed on 24 June 1901 at the church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Lorain. Her Polish ancestry is the other major inspiration for Romero's religiously themed art. Józef died on 25 July 1929, leaving Agnieszka to raise their large family.