Luis Jiménez American, 1940-2006

Luis Jiménez was an American sculptor best known for his large-scale, brightly colored sculptures steeped in the Mexican-American culture of Texas and New Mexico. Jiménez used fiberglass and spray paint to approach the qualities seen in Cholo car cultures in his depictions of cars caressing voluptuous women, Aztec kings being burned alive by conquistadors, border crossers, and raging broncos ridden by rodeo riders. Born on July 30, 1940 in El Paso, TX, he went on to study art and architecture at the University of Texas before working in his father’s shop making neon signs and car decals. Jiménez’s works were considered controversial by the art world yet respected in Hispanic communities for his ability to poignantly represent a different perspective and narrative of the history and culture of Mexico and the Southwest. Jiménez died tragically in a studio accident on June 13, 2006 in Hondo, NM. His works are in the collections of the Albuquerque Museum, the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C., the El Paso Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, among others.