Luis Jiménez (sculptor)

Luis Jiménez (sculptor)
Luis Alfonso Jiménez Jr. (July 30, 1940 – June 13, 2006) was an American sculptor and graphic artist of Mexican descent who identified as a Chicano. He was known for portraying Mexican, Southwestern, Hispanic-American, and general themes in his public commissions, some of which are site specific. The most famous of these is his Mustang. It was commissioned by the Denver International Airport and completed after his death.
His most extensive exhibition, a retrospective called Luis Jiménez: Man on Fire, which had 331 works, opened at The Albuquerque Museum in New Mexico in 1994. It was subsequently seen at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American Art in Washington, D.C. Luis Jiménez: Working Class Heroes: Images from a Popular Culture, another large exhibition, opened at The Dallas Museum of Art in 1997, from where it traveled to other national venues.
Education
Born in El Paso, Texas, he worked at his father's neon sign studio as a child, which prepared him to make public art.
He studied art and architecture at the University of Texas in Austin and El Paso, earning a bachelor's degree in 1964. He moved to New York City in 1966 after completing his post-graduate work at Ciudad Universitaria, Mexico City, D.F.
He became an accomplished artist and taught art at the University of Arizona and later the University of Houston.
Artistry
As a sculptor, Jiménez was known for his large polychromed fiberglass sculptures, often of Southwestern and Hispanic themes. His works were often controversial. They are eminently recognizable due to their themes, his original sculptural style, and the colorful, undulating surfaces the artist employed. The finish of his sculptures had more in common with commercial products than with conventional fine art sculptures.
Jiménez was influenced by the murals of José Clemente Orozco and Diego Rivera. He was very much a contemporary artist whose roots were in pop art, as much as they were in both the modernism of the Mexican muralists and the regionalism of Benton and Grant Wood. Heroic sculptures were Jiménez's forte, championing the common man in his work. By working in his father's shop on neon signs and sculptures, he was brought in contact with popular culture, which also included lowrider car culture. The brightly painted fiberglass bodywork, often accented with glitter, served as a particularly relevant artistic influence.
While he is best known as a sculptor, Jiménez also made remarkable color lithographs and color drawings in pencil, pastel, and oil stick. He made preparatory drawings for his sculptures, some of which were very large. Most of his sculptures were made of fiberglass, which were cast in a mold, after which they were painted with multiple layers of paint and coated with epoxy. One art expert has noted, "There was no surface on any Luis Jiménez sculpture that was ever any less than six different colors, each airbrushed separately adding a slightly different tone." Jiménez would also often use flake, that glittery quality often seen on lowrider cars, in his paint.
In 1993, Jiménez was a recipient of the New Mexico Governor's Awards for Excellence in the Arts. In 1998 he received a Distinguished Alumni award from the University of Texas in recognition of his artwork.
Health
As a child, his left eye was shot by a BB gun. Surgeries corrected his vision, but he developed persistent migraines and got a glass eye later in life.
As a young adult who was then teaching art at a junior high school, he was temporarily paralyzed from the chest down in a car accident.
In his later years, he had a heart attack and required hand surgery.
Death
On June 13, 2006, Jiménez died in an accident at age 65 in his studio in Hondo, New Mexico, when a large section of his 32-foot-high work Blue Mustang, intended for Denver International Airport, came loose from a hoist and severed an artery in his leg.
Governor Bill Richardson ordered flags in New Mexico flown at half-staff June 15–16, 2006, in Jiménez's honor.
Family
Jiménez's daughter Elisa is a multimedia artist and fashion designer and was a contestant on season four of Bravo's reality television series Project Runway.
Works
Man on Fire, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC, 1969
Progress I, Albuquerque Museum, New Mexico, 1974
Progress II, Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, Texas, 1976
Vaquero, Moody Park, Houston, Texas, 1980
Sodbuster, Wichita State university as part of the Ulrich Museum of art outdoor sculpture collection, 1980–81
Honky Tonk, Wichita State University as part of the Ulrich Museum, 1981
Southwest Pieta, Longfellow Park, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 1983 (declared a national treasure by President Bill Clinton in 1999)
Howl, Albuquerque Museum, New Mexico and Ulrich Museum of Art, Wichita State University, 1986
Border Crossing/Cruzando el Rio Bravo, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Los Angeles, California, and Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, Texas, 1989
Steelworker, Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, Alabama, 1990
Los Lagartos, Downtown, El Paso, Texas, 1993
Fiesta Jarabe, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 1996
Assyrian Lion, Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, Kalamazoo, 2004
Cleveland Fallen Firefighters Memorial, Cleveland, OH, 2006
Blue Mustang, Denver International Airport, Denver, Colorado, 2008
Collections
Albuquerque Museum, Albuquerque, New Mexico
Anderson Museum of Contemporary Art, Roswell, New Mexico
Arizona State University, Nelson Fine Arts Center Tempe, Arizona
Art Museum of Southeast Texas Beaumont, Texas
Jack S. Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, Texas
Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR
Chazen Museum of Art, Madison, Wisconsin
El Paso Museum of Art, El Paso, Texas
Iowa State University, College of Family and Consumer Sciences, Ames, Iowa
Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Missouri
Long Beach Museum of Art, Long Beach, California
McCarran International Airport, Las Vegas, Nevada
New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe, New Mexico
Plains Art Museum, Fargo, North Dakota
Roswell Museum and Art Center, Roswell, New Mexico
Saint Louis University, St. Louis University Museum of Art, Saint Louis, Missouri
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.
University of Arizona, Museum of Art, Tucson, Arizona
University of Kansas, Helen Foresman Spencer Museum of Art, Lawrence, Kansas
University of Oklahoma, Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art, Norman, Oklahoma
University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico
University of Texas at El Paso, Library, El Paso, Texas
University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, Texas
Utah Valley University, Woodbury Art Museum Orem, Utah
Valley National Bank of Arizona, Fine Arts Department, Phoenix, Arizona
Wichita State University, Edwin A. Ulrich Museum of Art, Wichita, Kansas
Spencer Museum of Art, Lawrence, Kansas
Frost Art Museum, Miami, FL
The Grace Museum, Abilene, Texas
Mcnay Museum of Art, San Antonio, TX
Ellen Noël Art Museum, Odessa, Texas
The Sculpture Collection, Santa Monica, CA
Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles
Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, Colorado Springs, CO
Numerous private collections
See also
History of the Mexican-Americans in Texas
References
Laguna Gloria Art Museum, Luis Jimenez, Austin, Texas: Laguna Gloria Art Museum, 1983
Landis, Moore, et al., "Man on Fire, Luis Jiménez, El Hombre en Llamas, The Albuquerque Museum, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 1994
McHenry, Deni McIntosh. Luis Jiménez: Working-Class Heroes: Images from the Popular Culture, Kansas City, Missouri: Mid-America Arts Alliance, 1997
Ramos, E. Carmen, "The Latino Presence in American Art," American Art 26 (Summer 2012): 7-13
Storey, Natalie, Artist Dies in Studio Accident, The Santa Fe New Mexican, June 14, 2006, page 1
External links
Stewart, Jocelyn Y. "Luis Jiménez Jr., 65; Artist Whose Sculptures Are on Public Display Nationwide," Los Angeles Times, Thursday, June 15, 2006.
Smithsonian American Art Museum biography
From the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art Image of Mesteño, smaller version of the sculpture that killed him.
Johnson, Kirk. "And Behold a Big Blue Horse? Many in Denver Just Say Neigh," The New York Times, Monday, March 2, 2009.
1940 births
2006 deaths
American artists of Mexican descent
Artists from El Paso, Texas
University of Texas at El Paso alumni
University of Texas at Austin School of Architecture alumni
University of Houston faculty
University of Arizona faculty
Sculptors from Texas
20th-century American sculptors
20th-century American male artists
American male sculptors
Accidental deaths in New Mexico
20th-century American printmakers