University of Arizona

Everyone is welcome to visit Special Collections without an appointment from 9 am - 5 pm, Mon - Fri. Note that beginning April 1st, our hours will be 9 am - 4 pm

Collection Relating to Francisco Zúñiga

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 due to the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War. Instead he went to Mexico where he was influenced by the prehispanic sculptures in the National Museum of Anthropology 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 exhibitions and his works are owned by galleries and museums worldwide. Francisco Zuniga died August 9, 1998 in Mexico City.

This collection contains photographs and background material that Sheldon Reich used in his book Francisco Zúñiga, 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 Zúñiga's exhibition catalogs, and audio cassettes of Reich's interviews with Zúñiga in 1976. Transcripts of the tapes are present, as are early drafts of the book, letters from Zúñiga, essays by Zúñiga and others about art, newspaper clippings about his work, and photocopies of journal articles.