Luis jimenez biography

The artist sought to bring Native American, Mexican, and Chicano figures to the fore in works that pay heed to classical sculptural values. That relationship began in the s with then-director Joshua Taylor, who was an enthusiastic supporter of the artist's work, and continued to the present day with the many staffers who speak fondly of their personal interactions with the artist.

For several years Vaquero , an equestrian statue that is considered among the artist's most important works, was temporarily installed near the front steps of the building the piece was owned by the city of Houston, TX. Over time visitors and staffers alike came to regard the piece as emblematic of the museum, so, in American Art purchased an artist's proof of Vaquero , which stood near the museum for a decade.

The piece was reinstalled last week at the north entrance to the museum. A museum centerpiece like Vaquero accummulates stories over time, and unsurprisingly, it figures into many staffers' recollections.

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The relationship between the museum and the artist was mutually beneficial—even, at times, indirectly so. Eleven program volunteers assessed the artist's work. Vaquero received one of the program's inaugural preservation conservation awards. Because so many of his piecees were public commissions, the artist's works often took the characteristics of a community into consideration.

The Protestant artist did not always find that his work had a place within mainstream Chicano culture. Nor did his art hew entirely to the Pop paradigm in which he worked. Vaquero , for example, met some resistance from Hispanic communities, who argued that a monumental gunslinging Mexican cowboy reinforced negative images of immigrants.

The work bears a similar composition to that of A. In a similar vein, neither were regional themes predominant among his Pop Art peers. Some controversies notwithstanding, the artist's career has not been marked by contention. But figuring that a "frivolous" piece might be greeted by the Scandinavian Lutheran community with hostility, he instead proposed Sodbuster , a complete one-eighty that nevertheless tapped the regional vein.