Jesus Moroles
(1950-2015) Jesus Moroles was a sculptor from Rockport, Texas known for monumental abstract granite works. Moroles earned his BFA at North Texas State University in 1978.
He apprenticed under the late sculptor Luis Jimenez for a year, and then spent a year working with stone in Pietrasanta, Italy. In 1981 he purchased his first large diamond saw, and two years later he returned home to open his own studio with his family.
Moroles has been included in over 130 one-person exhibitions and 200 group exhibitions. He was the recipient of the United States National Medal of Arts in 2008, and he received the Texas Medal of the Arts Award for Visual Arts in 2007. He was the Texas State Artist for three-dimensional work in 2011.
Moroles was commissioned to create public sculptures in Albuquerque, New Mexico, New York City and Wichita Kansas. He also created the Houston Police Officer's Memorial, a ziggurat-style stepped pyramid monument on Memorial Drive in Houston. His work is in numerous museum collections including The Dallas Museum of Art; El Paso Museum of Art; Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art, University of Oklahoma; Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth; Museum of Contemporary Art, Osaka, Japan; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas; Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, and the Art Museum of Southeast Texas in Beaumont.
Art on Campus
Spirit Columns
Year: 2016
Medium: Granite
Location: Front of the Reaud Administration Building and Honors College on Rolfe Christopher.
The granite used to create these sculptures came from a large piece of stone that had fallen off a train in Waxahachie. Moroles was told he could have the granite if he could move it. He split (or tore, as he preferred to say) the granite into sections and had it moved to his studio in Rockport. He carved the initial waves and grooves into the pieces and left them unfinished in his studio. When Lamar expressed interest in the work, Moroles pulled them from inventory and worked to complete the shapes. The Lamar Spirit Column commission was one of the final three commissions Moroles worked on before his untimely death from a car accident
Musical Stele
Year: 1994
Medium: Black Granite
Location: Lobby of The Center for Innovation, Commercialization and Entrepreneurship on Rolfe Christopher.
This sculpture is called “Musical Stele” because it is made from a rare black granite that actually has musical properties. Though touching is not encouraged, a very gentle brushing of the fingers over the delicate fins will create musical tones that vary depending on the length of the fin. Stele is a term used for an upright stone slab that served as a monument or marker in ancient times.
