Quirarte, Jacinto 1931-

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QUIRARTE, Jacinto 1931-

PERSONAL:

Surname is pronounced Key-ar-tay; born August 17, 1931, in Jerome, AZ; son of Francisco (a teamster) and Frutosa (Jimenez) Quirarte; married Sara Bel Farmer, December 18, 1954; children: Sabrina Pilar. Education: San Francisco State College (now San Francisco State University), B.A., 1954, M.A., 1958; National University of Mexico, Ph.D., 1964. Politics: Democrat. Religion: Roman Catholic.

ADDRESSES:

Home—10902 Bar X Trail, San Antonio, TX 78228. Office—Research Center for the Arts, University of Texas—San Antonio, San Antonio, TX 78285.

CAREER:

Colegio Americano, Mexico City, Mexico, art teacher, 1959-61; National University of Mexico, Mexico City, assistant to Alberto Ruz Lhuillier, 1961-62; University of the Americas, Mexico City, Mexico, professor of art history and dean of men, 1962-64; Centro Venezolano-Americano, Caracas, Venezuela, director of Asuntos Culturales, 1964-66; University of Texas—Austin, professor of art history, 1967-72; University of Texas—San Antonio, professor of art history and dean of College of Fine and Applied Arts, 1972-1978, director of Research Center for the Arts, 1979-1990s, professor emeritus, art history and criticism. Visiting professor at Universidad Central de Venezuela, spring, 1966, Yale University, spring, 1967, and University of New Mexico, spring, 1971. Military service: U.S. Air Force, flight officer, navigator, and radar-bombardier for Strategic Air Command (SAC), 1954-57; became captain. U.S. Air Force Reserve, 1957-62.

MEMBER:

International Congress of Anthropology and Ethnology, International Congress of the History of Art, International Congress of Americanists, Society for American Archaeology, Mid-America College Art Association, Texas Council of the Arts in Education (member of visual arts and humanities panel), San Antonio Arts Council (vice president and member of board, 1973-77).

WRITINGS:

(Translator) Alfonso Caso, El Codice Selden (title means "The Selden Codex"), Sociedad Mexicana de Antropologia (Mexico), 1964.

Mexican American Artists, University of Texas Press (Austin, TX), 1973.

Izapan Style Art: A Study of Its Form and Meaning (monograph), Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA), 1973.

(Contributor) Philip D. Ortego, editor, We Are Chicanos: An Anthology of Mexican American Literature, Washington Square Press (Washington Square Press), 1973.

(Contributor) Henry Nicholson, editor, Origins of Religious Art and Iconography in Preclassic Mesoamerica, Latin American Center, University of California, Los Angeles (Los Angeles, CA), 1976.

(Contributor) Gordon Willey and R. E. W. Adams, editors, Origins of Maya Civilization, University of New Mexico Press (Albuquerque, NM), 1977.

(Contributor) David L. Browman, editor, Cultural Continuity in Mesoamerica, Mouton (Pairs France), 1978.

(Contributor) Norman Hammond and Willey, editors, Maya Archaeology and Ethnohistory, University of Texas Press (Austin, TX), 1979.

(Contributor) Merle Greene Robertson and Connan Call Jeffers, Tercera Mesa Redonda de Palenque, Pre-Columbian Art Research (San Francisco, CA), 1979.

(Editor, with Maria Elena Gonzalez-Rich) Directory of Hispanic American Arts Organizations, Research Center for the Arts and Humanities, University of Texas—San Antonio (San Antonio, TX), 1982.

(Editor) The Hispanic American Aesthetic, Research Center for the Arts and Humanities, University of Texas—San Antonio (San Antonio, TX), 1983.

(Editor and author of introductory notes) Chicano Art History: A Book of Selected Readings, Research Center for the Arts and Humanities, University of Texas—San Antonio (San Antonio, TX), 1984.

Cesar A. Martinez: A Retrospective, Marion Koogler McNay Art Museum (San Antonio, TX), 1999.

The Art and Architecture of the Texas Missions, University of Texas Press (Austin, TX), 2002.

Contributor to proceedings and to journals.

SIDELIGHTS:

Art historian Jacinto Quirarte is a scholar and educator as well as the author of numerous articles and books on Mexican-American themes and pre-Columbian and Chicano art. Also a prominent administrator, Quirarte was among those involved in the founding of the University of Texas—San Antonio in the 1970s. Quirarte's book-length publications, such as Mexican American Artists, Izapan Style Art: A Study of Its Form and Meaning and Chicano Art History: A Book of Selected Readings, point to the author's continued interest in art forms both in Mexico and by Mexican Americans in the United States.

With his 1999 title, Cesar A. Martinez: A Retrospective, Quirarte looks at the work of this Chicano artist from the 1970s to the end of the twentieth century. In The Art and Architecture of the Texas Missions, published in 2002, Quirarte employs his decades of research on the missions to provide a comprehensive look at both the art and architecture of the six remaining ones in Texas: San Antonio de Valero (the Alamo), San Jose y San Miguel de Aguayo, Nuestra Senora de la Purisima Concepcion, San Juan Capistrano, and San Francisco de la Espada, in San Antonio, and Nuestra Senora del Espiritu Santo in Goliad, Texas. Built in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, these missions were intended as outposts of European civilization and Christianity by the Spaniards, who were settling the frontier of New Spain. In addition to dealing with artistic questions, Quirarte also provides an introduction to Native-American life in Texas and the Spanish missionary system.

Reviewing The Art and Architecture of the Texas Missions in the Winterthur Portfolio, Kenneth Hafertepe noted that "Quirarte's text provides abundant information about the individual statues and the materials of which they were made," and concluded that the author "has done a wonderful job of pulling together images that document the missions." However, Hafertepe also felt that the organization of the book makes it not very "user-friendly for finding facts about a specific detail of planning or construction or even an overview of a mission's architecture." Reviewing the same title in Library Journal, Russell T. Clement commented that the "text recaptures original mission art and architecture" and that the book "is also of value for its broader historical, religious, and cultural contexts and insights."