Celebrated San Antonio visual artist Angel Rodríguez-Díaz has died at age 67

Angel Rodríguez-Díaz, a San Antonio artist celebrated both for his politically charged portrait work and his towering public sculptures, died last Friday at age 67, according to Texas Public Radio.

Rodríguez-Díaz frequently starred in his own portraits, which commented on issues ranging from colonialism and sexual identity to war and the environment. In one of his best-known works, Chupacabra, he depicted himself as the titular creature, suggesting that U.S. Latinos are viewed as exotic outsiders by the larger society.

“If I were to characterize him as an artist, the really unique, singular and astonishing thing about his work is how he used his self-portraiture as a vehicle for social commentary,” art historian Ruben C. Cordova told the Current in 2017. “He makes a critique of pollution, or fossil fuels, greed, corruption and war in the genre of self-portraiture.”

The San Antonio Museum of Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum and museums added Rodríguez-Díaz’s portrait work to their collections, making him among the city’s highest-profile visual artists.

Rodríguez-Díaz has shown his portraits since the 1980s. More recently, he added large-scale public artworks to his repertoire.

The City of San Antonio commissioned him in 2014 to create a pair of metal obelisks along Blanco and Basse Roads. The 28-foot sculptures, both embellished with intricate cutouts, were intended to honor Mexican American workers at the former Alamo Cement plant, according to Cordova.

Rodríguez-Díaz was born in Puerto Rico and relocated to San Antonio in 1995 to live with his partner Rolando Briseño, a celebrated artist in his own right.

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This article appears in Mar 22 – Apr 4, 2023.