Eliseo Rodriguez

Eliseo Rodriguez (1915–2009) was a New Mexico artist known for his straw appliqué and oil paintings.

Early life Rodriguez was born in Santa Fe, New Mexico in 1915, exposed to the artists on Canyon Road. As a boy he worked odds jobs for the Cinco Pintores, the five young painters who formed the state's first modernist-leaning artist collective. Regional director Russell Vernon Hunter encouraged Rodriguez to revive the Spanish colonial art technique known as "straw appliqué". In 2001 Rodriguez finally got a solo exhibition, Eliseo Rodriguez : el sexto pintor, held at the New Mexico Museum of Art. Eliseo created the bronze plaques that are set in the sidewalk in front of the Fine Art Museum in Santa Fe, at a corner of the Plaza, and he is included along with the Cinco Pintores and other master painters.

Rodriguez's works are in the public collections of the Albuquerque Museum, Millicent Rogers Museum, Folk Art Museum (Berlin, Germany), Museum of Spanish Colonial Art, Museum of International Folk Art, American Museum in Britain, Smithsonian Museum of American History, and the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center.

Rodriguez died at home on April 3, 2009. Paula, his wife of 74 years, preceded him in death by about four months. 1985: he was one of a select few artists honored by the city with a plaque on West Palace Avenue in Santa Fe

Joint awards and honors with Paula 1989: Master's Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Spanish Market