Franciso Zúñiga was a Mexican and Costa Rican figural painter and sculptor born in Barrio de San José in 1912. Zúñiga’s parents were both sculptors and while his father would become his first instructor, he also drew inspiration from German Expressionists and Auguste Rodin. He studied under sculptor Oliverio Martinez and painter Manuel Rodriguez Lozano at the Escuela de Talla Directa. Zúñiga worked in a variety of mediums: painting, sculpting in bronze, alabaster, modelling clay, plaster, and marble and in his later years, he created lithographs. His works blend contemporary forms with the style of pre-Columbian art. He is best known for his female figures, shown in the nude, in nature or the markets of Mexico, portraying these figures with an honesty and appreciation for the natives of Central America. Zúñiga died in 1998 in Tlapan, Mexico, and his artworks are now in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Museo de Arte Moderno in Mexico City, and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington.
