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 Blue Mustang. Jiménez died in an industrial accident during its construction. 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 Thomas Hart 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