In April 2004, the art world was mourning the loss of an artist whose work still delights thousands of people every day. Peter Rocha, whose mosaic paintings created out of jelly beans had enraptured visitors to a Fairfield jelly bean factory for decades, had died at the age of 65 from Lou Gehrig’s disease in a San Francisco hospital.
In the early 1980s, hearing that President Ronald Reagan loved jelly beans, Mr. Rocha decided to create a presidential portrait in the form of a jelly bean mosaic. The Jelly Belly Candy Co., which produces the sweets Peter always used, has a large factory in Fairfield that is popular with visitors, features many of his mosaic portraits in the factory tours.
Over his artistic career, Peter had created wonderful images of a whole host of famous people, including Queen Elizabeth, Laurel and Hardy, Benjamin Franklin, Elvis Presley, Amelia Earhart, Larry King and Minnie Mouse. He had toured the USA and Europe on behalf of the company, displaying his works at sweet conventions and large retail outlets.
Individual portraits could involve using 14,000 or more beans, taking several months to make. Peter would first paint an image on a sheet of wood, then carefully select and position the colored beans over the image. He never glued the beans , but placed them on a layer of varnish, which, once dried, would be covered with more varnish, to prevent insects from ruining his works by eating them.
50 different kinds of beans made by the company gave Peter a broad palette of colors. Reagan’s white teeth were made from coconut jelly beans (Mr. Rocha’s personal favorite), King’s blue suspenders were made from blueberry beans, and Minnie Mouse’s black ears were made from licorice beans. The Reagan portrait hangs in the Reagan presidential library in Simi Valley.
His arrangement with the the Jelly Bean company always left him plenty of beans over, which he shared with visitors or munched during his jogging or yoga sessions. In 2000, after sclerosis left him unable to continue with his art, he turned it over to his nephew, Roger.
Peter Rocha had been a native of San Antonio and a U.S. Navy veteran. He had studied art in New York City before coming to San Francisco in the 1950s and painted murals and decorations for Bay Area restaurants and buildings and designed corporate logos. He lived and worked in his Mission District studio. His paintings still adorn Pier 39 and the old Phil Lehr’s Steakery restaurant in San Francisco and the Flying Lady in Gilroy.
Roger Rocha showcased a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II at the time of her coronation, in 1952, made from 10,000 jellybeans, in 2004, and The 4-foot-high artwork is now on display at Fizziwig’s Sweet Emporium in Brighton, UK. The beauty of Rocha’s art is that it represents good fun, a lighter side to life that all too easily gets forgotten about. He left us with a splendid legacy. A truly inredible artistic talent.
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