Francisco Zuniga (1912 - 1998) Mexican, Watercolor. 1971. Signed and dated in lower right. Watercolor of a sitting figure. Light colored background.

Overall Size: 21 1/2 x 17 1/2 in.

Sight Size: 10 1/2 x 13 1/2 in.

#8004

Jose Jesus Francisco Zuniga Chavarria was born in Guadalupe, Barrio de San Jose, Costa Rica in December 1912 to Manuel Maria Zuniga and Maria Chavarria. His father worked as a sculptor of religious figures and in stone work, and Zuniga began working in it at fifteen. In 1926 he enrolled in the Escuela de Bellas Artes in Mexico, but left the following year. On his own he studied German Expressionism and the writings of Alexander Heilmayer, through which he learned of the French sculptors Aristide Maillol and Auguste Rodin, coming to appreciate the idea of subordinating technique to expression. His first stone sculpture won second prize at the 1929 Exposicion Nacional de Bellas Artes, and he won first prize at the 1935 Salon de Escultura en Costa Rica for his stone sculpture “La Maternidad,” but the work caused controversy and the government rescinded its award. In 1936 he immigrated to Mexico City, Mexico permanently, where he studied at La Escuela de Talla Directa, working with Guillermo Ruiz, sculptor Oliverio Martinez, and painter Rodriguez Lozano. In 1938, he took a faculty position at La Esmeralda; he remained at that position until retiring in 1970. In 1947, he married Elena Laborde, a painting student, and had three children with her. By the 1980s he had won major awards in Mexico, Belgium, Germany, Italy, and Japan, with solo exhibitions throughout the Americas and Europe. Near the end of his life, illness left him nearly blind, which caused him to shift his artistic work to terra cotta, using his hands to create the lines. He passed away in 1998.