ENRIQUE ALFÉREZ SCULPTOR

Enrique Alférez: Sculptor

by Katie Bowler Young

hardcover
7.5" × 10"
224 pp.
100 images
ISBN 978-0-917860-85-0US
$49.95 

Enrique Alférez, born in Mexico at the dawn of the twentieth century, left a lasting imprint on the Louisiana landscape. After service in the Mexican Revolution as a youth, he emigrated to Texas; studied in Chicago; and, in 1929, first made his way to New Orleans. For the next seventy years, until his death in 1999, he contributed figurative sculptures, monuments, fountains, architectural details, and carvings to prominent sites across the city—from the Poydras Street corridor to City Park to the Lakefront Airport. It is difficult today to drive more than a few miles in New Orleans without encountering some trace of his craft. Through his art, this sculptor of Mexican origins helped shape the look of one of the United States’ most visually interesting cities.

Author Katie Bowler Young has gained extensive access to Alférez’s personal records and family collection, and she has created a poetic evocation of the life and work of this preeminent artist. Enrique Alférez: Sculptor is the latest entry in THNOC’s Louisiana Artists Biography Series. Featuring more than one hundred images of Alférez’s work in New Orleans and beyond, this volume is the first in the series to center on sculpture and public art.

Katie Bowler Young is the author of Through Water with Ease (Louisiana Literature Press, 2019) and State Street (Bull City Press, 2009). Her poetry and prose have appeared in the Southern Review, Midwest Quarterly, Carolina Quarterly, and Louisiana Literature, among other publications. Her awards include a Fulbright-Nehru International Education Award and the North Carolina Governor’s Award for Excellence for Outstanding Government Service. She leads university collaborations for RTI International, an independent nonprofit research institute dedicated to science that improves the human condition. Katie earned degrees from the University of New Orleans and the Warren Wilson College MFA Program for Writers.