Francisco Zuniga collection

MS 254

Black and white image of sculptures

Collection area: Borderlands

Collection dates: 1945-1980

About this collection

Photographs and background material that Sheldon Reich used in his book Francisco Zuniga, Sculptor, published in 1980. Although most of the photographs depict figurative sculpture, some also show the preliminary crayon, pencil, and ink sketches. Other material includes eight of Zuniga's exhibition catalogs, and audio cassettes of Reich's interviews with him in 1976. Transcripts of the tapes are present, as are early drafts of the book, letters from Zuniga, essays by Zuniga and others about art, newspaper clippings about his work, and photocopies of journal articles.

Historical background

Francisco Zuniga was born in Costa Rica in 1912. As a youth he studied drawing at the School of Fine Arts of San Jose. He had intended to study in Europe but was unable to, due to the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War. Instead he went to Mexico where he was influenced by the prehispanic sculptures in the Anthropology Museum in Mexico City. In 1938 Zuniga joined the faculty of "La Esmeralda," the prestigious Mexican school of painting and sculpture of the National Institute of Fine Arts. As a sculptor and a painter, Zuniga's works consist almost exclusively of the human female figure. Over his lifetime Zuniga had over 50 individual showings and his works are owned by galleries and museums worldwide. Francisco Zuniga died August 9, 1998 in Mexico City.

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