Sculptor Enrique Alférez, whose artwork can be found across New Orleans, loved to buck the status quo.
When he included Black male figures among images of workers sculpted on the facade of City Park bridges in 1936, white residents balked. Black people were not allowed in the park back then.
“He rebelled against racist social constructs and created artwork that reflected the public more broadly,” wrote Katie Bowler Young, author of “Enrique Alférez: Sculptor.” “Alférez’s making monuments to the people who built City Park was a radical act at the time.”
Born in Mexico in 1901, Alférez worked close to 70 years in New Orleans. He came to the city in 1929 after running away from home at 12, being drafted to fight in the Mexican Revolution, and studying with sculptor Lorado Taft at the Art Institute of Chicago.
According to the New Orleans Museum of Art (NOMA), Alférez created more than 20 major public works, including sculptures and wall reliefs in metal, plaster and wood in the city. They include: “Molly Marine” at Elk Place, “Fountain of the Four Winds” at the New Orleans Lakefront Airport, and “Symbols of Communication,” created for the Times-Picayune lobby but now at NOMA.
“Alférez is one of New Orleans’ most influential and important artists,” NOMA states. His “large-scale public artworks and murals advance progressive political views and shine light on social issues of the time – especially the importance of cross-cultural dialogue and exchange.”
When talking about her book in 2021 with “Reading Life” host Susan Larson, Young said Alférez, who died in 1999, was larger than life.
“He left an imprint on the visual landscape of the city,” she said. “His work is both reflective of what he saw in the city as well as an important shaper of the city.”
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