Luis Jiménez (sculptor)

Born in El Paso, Texas, he worked at his father's neon sign studio as a child, which prepared him to make public art.[2]

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.

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.[2]

Man on Fire (1969) at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in 2023

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.[3] Heroic sculptures were Jiménez's forte, championing the common man in his work.[4] 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.[5]

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.[6] 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.[7]

In 1993, Jiménez was a recipient of the New Mexico Governor's Awards for Excellence in the Arts.[8] In 1998 he received a Distinguished Alumni award from the University of Texas in recognition of his artwork.

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.[9]

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.[6]

In his later years, he had a heart attack and required hand surgery.[9]

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.[10][9]

Governor Bill Richardson ordered flags in New Mexico flown at half-staff June 15–16, 2006, in Jiménez's honor.[10]

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.[11][12]

• Man on Fire, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC, 1969[2]
• Progress I, Albuquerque Museum, New Mexico, 1974[13]
• Progress II, Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, Texas, 1976[14]
• 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[13]
• Border Crossing/Cruzando el Rio Bravo, Santa Fe, New Mexico,[15] Los Angeles, California, and Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, Texas,[16] 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

• History of the Mexican-Americans in Texas

• 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

• 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.