Jacinto Quirarte

QUIRARTE
Jacinto Quirarte of Helotes, Texas passed away on July 20, 2012. He was a professor emeritus and a former Dean of the College of Fine and Applied Arts at the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA). Jacinto, who was born in Jerome, Arizona on August 17, 1931, moved with his parents and five siblings to San Francisco when he was 16. He graduated from San Francisco's Mission High School and earned a MA and BA in from San Francisco State University. Jacinto found his academic calling in the early 1950s, after serving in the United States Air Force as a first lieutenant and navigator who was trained on radar operations and nuclear weapons. When the Korean War ended, Jacinto, and his wife, Sara, headed to Mexico for graduate school where he became steeped in the artistic traditions of Central and South America. Jacinto earned his PhD from the National Autonomous University of Mexico. He also spent two years as a cultural affairs representative for the U.S. Embassy in Caracas, Venezuela. As an art historian, he concentrated on Pre-Columbian, Latin American and Latino art history. He was the author of several books and monographs, numerous articles, book reviews, book chapters and exhibition catalogue entries on Pre-Columbian art and archaeology, colonial, and modern Mexican and Latino art. Jacinto was the author of "Izapan Style Art - A Study of Its Form and Meaning," "Mexican American Artists," "The Art and Architecture of Ancient Guatemala: A Selection of Masterpieces," How to Look at a Masterpiece: Europe and the Americas," and "The Art and Architecture of the Texas Missions." Jacinto was recruited for the team that started UTSA. He was one of UTSA's founding deans and headed what was then called the College of Arts. In addition to teaching art history, he directed the Research Center for the Arts, an outreach program that emphasized multidisciplinary exploration of Hispanic and Colonial influences on art and culture. Prior to his work helping develop UTSA, Jacinto taught at the University of Texas at Austin, Colegio Americano of Mexico City, University of the Americas in Mexico City and Yale University. He was a visiting professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara, University of New Mexico at Albuquerque and the American University of London. From 1982-1987, Jacinto chaired the National Task Force on Hispanic Art of the National Endowment for the Arts. He served as a senior fellow in the Pre-Columbian Program at Dumbarton Oaks and was one of the founding members and first president of the Association of Latin American Art. In 1975, he was one of 25 people appointed by President Gerald R. Ford to be a member of the American Revolution Bicentennial Advisory Council. Jacinto was preceded in death by his parents, Francisco and Frutosa Quirarte, son Marc Vincent, brother Francisco Quirarte, Jr., and sister Geraldine Rivera. He is survived by his wife of 57 years, Sara Quirarte; their daughter Sabrina Pilar McGowan and her husband Patrick; sister Jessie Luecht and her husband Vince; sister Rachel McElroy and her husband Richard; sister Teresa Faue; and many beloved nieces, nephews, aunts and cousins. Jacinto's family expresses their gratitude to Dr. Christopher Bogaev and the neurological, nursing, and patient support staff in the Neurological Intensive Care Unit of Methodist Hospital in San Antonio. A friend of Jacinto's recently wrote to his wife and daughter: "Jacinto was an individual whose presence has impacted the lives and thoughts of more than you will ever know. He lives on, in all of us who have had the pleasure to know and enjoy him in thought and in deed. He always maintained that wonderful sense of humor, and wry wit that when expressed, was followed up by that wonderful chuckle that was uniquely his! He is a remarkable scholar, a great humanist and a man whose presence has impacted generations of thinkers in the field he opened up."
SERVICE
Friday, August 3, 2012
3 p.m.
Our Lady of Guadalupe Church
13715 Riggs Road
Helotes, TX 78023
(Map) http://www.catholicearth.com/olghelotes/our-parish/81-map-a-directions

A reception at the church will immediately follow the service.

In lieu of flowers, memorials may be given to the "Jacinto Quirarte Endowed Scholarship in Art History" and mailed to: University of Texas at San Antonio, College of Liberal and Fine Arts, Office of the Dean, One UTSA Circle, San Antonio, Texas 78249-0641.
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