Both Museum of Art and History curator Susan Hillhouse and Museo Eduardo Carrillo director Betsy Andersen have the same favorite story about Eduardo Carrillo, the late artist and UC Santa Cruz professor. Carrillo, each recounted separately, would wake up each morning, roll out of bed and sit at a table, painting watercolors and sketching while he had his first cup of coffee.

“He would never stop,” Hillhouse said. “He was completely immersed in what he was doing.”

That passion shows in Eduardo Carrillo: Within a Cultural Context, which opened August 22 at the downtown Santa Cruz museum’s Solari Gallery. The show will be up through November 22.

“He was a keen observer of his world,” said Andersen, who heads the online museum dedicated to the artist’s legacy. “I think he accepted all aspects of it, its harmony and disharmony, beauty and awkwardness.”

The show emphasizes Carrillo’s figurative paintings, from deeply personal portraits to larger, more mythic, pieces. Touches of the Baroque mix with influences from El Greco and Paul Gauguin to Aztec imagery.

“You can tell by looking at the work in the gallery that the same artist did the work,” Hillhouse said, “but it’s also very diverse in theme and composition and the way he paints.”

This will be the second regional solo show in two years for the Chicano artist. Last year’s posthumous solo exhibit at the National Steinbeck Center in Salinas focused on works from area collectors that dealt with Mexico. The Museum of Art and History show, one of seven exhibits booked through 2015, brings together works culled from collectors across California.

“A number of these paintings I’ve never seen, and I’ve been familiar with Eduardo’s work since the 1970s,” said Andersen, who remembers Carrillo as a generous soul, a mentor who taught her mural painting at UCSC.

Hillhouse chose works with a focus on the figurative and magical realism. One of her favorite pairings is a self portrait of the artist wearing a yellow cap that has been hung above a portrait of his wife, sleeping on a yellow pillow — a subtle nod to the couple’s deep love and commitment.

“Eduardo was so here when he was here,” said Hillhouse. “I wish I had known him….He lived life very fully and he was able to love completely, which was really a beautiful thing.”

In one corner of the gallery, a section of Carillo’s studio has been set up including an easel with the last painting he worked on, an unfinished figure reaching forward.

“It’s interesting to me how many of his paintings have reaching,” Hillhouse said. “To me that’s a metaphor for how he was always reaching out for the next painting, the next level of expertise.”

The artist, who passed away during cancer treatments in 1997, taught at UCSC from 1972 until his death. Carrillo also taught at CSU Sacramento and UC San Diego. Among Carrillo’s best-known pieces is the Los Angeles mural “El Grito,” a 1979 work in tile that stands near Olvera Street at the Placita de Dolores, on a curved wall in front of the Church of Dolores. It commemorates the Mexican revolt against Spain in 1810.

Born in Santa Monica, Carrillo got his masters and bachelors in the 1960s from UCLA. He moved to La Paz during the late ’60s and founded the El Centro Regional de Arte with potter Daniel Zenteno. During this time, the artist learned more about the indigenous cultures of Mexico, knowledge that informed his work. His Catholic upbringing, a trip to Spain and cultural heritage of his family also influenced him.

The paintings are “dramatic and deeply embedded in story,” Andersen said. “I think they’re deeply empathetic to character.”

That empathy comes across in Alison Carrillo’s recollection of her husband’s work on “La Ultima Cena,” which hangs in the exhibit. The painting — a commission in the early 1990s by Chaco Meza, a merchant in San Ignacio where much of Carrillo’s family was from — depicts the Last Supper using members of the town as models.

“Every afternoon around 4 o’clock, the models would trudge up the hill,” Alison Carrillo said via email. “Each brought his own friends so there were always new faces. They came in groups of three or four, carrying their tequila…. A bunch of salt of the earth types, really enjoying being there, lots of camaraderie and jokes. Now I missed a lot, but I do remember that each man was highly concerned who he was going to be…. They were all pretty flexible, except each was clear that he would NOT be Judas.”

Finally one of the men brought an El Salvadorean passing through town in to be the model for the disgraced apostle. The merchant’s son, Rogelio, sat for Jesus.

“The work is as near to perfect as I can imagine with those craggy, sculpted faces,” Alison said.

Hillhouse’s first true exposure to Carrillo was looking at his 1976 mural — destroyed in 1979 — outside the Palomar Arcade in Santa Cruz. Entitled “Birth, Death and Resurrection,” the 2500 square foot work combined Spanish and indigenous Mexican imagery.

“I remember being both attracted and repulsed by it because it was so powerful. I didn’t know what to do with those feelings when I looked at his work,” she said. “It always stayed with me.”

Exploring what it is that makes Carrillo’s work so compelling is part of what Hillhouse hopes the exhibit accomplishes. The show was already on the schedule when she joined the Museum as curator in 2006.

“I knew that he was an excellent artist and now I’ll never know if I would have chosen this exhibit if it had not been brought to us,” Hillhouse said. “I hope I would have. I hope I would have been smart enough.”

Even posthumously, Carrillo’s legacy continues at the Museo. The annual Eduardo Carrillo Prize in Painting, which artists must be nominated for, is currently on hiatus. However, works by 2006 winner Phe Ruiz line the wall at the top of the stairs before one gets to the exhibit.

“He wanted the best for people,” Andersen said. “I think that cycles back.”

Eduardo Carrillo: Within a Cultural Context closes November 22. Hours: Tue. – Sun. 11 a.m. – 5 p.m. Solari Gallery, Museum of Art and History at The McPherson Center, 705 Front Street, Santa Cruz. $5/adult; $3/students (18+) and seniors (62+); $2/children (12-17); free/children under 12 and museum members . (831) 429-1964.