Luis Jiménez

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 American Art Museum 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, Jiménez worked at his father's neon sign studio as a child, which introduced him to art. 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, and are recognizable due to their themes 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 a contemporary artist whose roots were in pop art, 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 to contact with popular culture at the time, which also included lowrider car culture. The prints he published at Landfall Press in Chicago and at regional, artistic presses around America spread his art around the area. 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 created 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 to introduce a 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, Jiménez's 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.

When he was a young adult teaching art at a junior high school, he was temporarily paralyzed from the chest down in a car accident.

Works Man on Fire, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC, 1969 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 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, Michigan 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 Harry Reid 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