Though his San Quentin murals are among the most significant works of Santos' career, for years even close friends knew nothing of them. "I never bragged about the murals because I was too embarrassed to tell people I'd been to prison as a young man," he said.
In 2003 he returned to San Quentin to see the murals for the first time in nearly a half century. "Someone put a shiny varnish on them that I didn't like," he recalled, "but it made me happy to look at them again and to think about all the guys who might have enjoyed them over the years."
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