Jesse Treviño Obituary, Legendary San Antonio Artist Dies At 76

Jesse Treviño Obituary, Death – In San Antonio, Jesse Treviño was a well-known public artist who produced some of the most recognizable pieces. He was 76. It is my sad duty to tell you that Jesse Treviño died away early this morning, wrote the artist’s biographer Anthony Head in a note on his Facebook page on Monday.

On the Mi Tierra Cafe & Bakery Facebook page, the Cortez family paid tribute to Jesse and stated that he “was a visionary who built many of San Antonio’s most famous and significant public art pieces that are now woven into the fabric of our city’s cultural environment.” Treviño underwent surgery to remove a malignant growth from his jaw in November. He had already received two diagnoses of cancer.

Nearly eleven years ago, he was informed that he had stage 4 throat cancer. Chemotherapy and radiation were used to treat it, and it entered remission. For instance, “The Spirit of Healing,” a 93-foot-tall mural he finished in 1997 on the side of Santa Rosa Children’s Hospital, which has since been renamed the Children’s Hospital of San Antonio, and “La Veladora,” a three-dimensional, 40-foot-tall mural showing a votive candle bearing the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe on the side of the Guadalupe Theater, are two of Treviño’s works

Cristina Ball, executive director of the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center, asserts that “That artwork means a lot to a lot of people.” Like the Alamo and the Tower of the Americas, it is also becoming a symbol of the city. Treviño, an Army veteran who was injured in Vietnam and lost his right arm as a result, had to relearn how to paint. At first, he received appreciation for his lifelike depictions of typical West Side situations.

In an interview with the American art archives of the Smithsonian Institution in 2004, he stated that his goal was to produce enduring works of art. He proclaimed, “I want to leave something here that will last for a very long time. If they are constructed and completed properly, they will also last for a very long period.

His art is represented in the collections of several museums. The San Antonio Museum of Art is home to “Senora Dolores Trevino,” a 1982 painting of his mother. The Smithsonian Institution’s American art collection houses “Mis Hermanos,” a 1976 painting of him and his brothers, “Tienda de Elizondo,” a 1993 depiction of a mom-and-pop store, and “Los Santos de San Antonio,” a 1980 print.