Damian Priour

1949 - 2011

Damian Priour, the most successful Austin sculptor of his generation, died Wednesday night after a years-long struggle with cancer. He was 61.

Born in 1949 on Padre Island during the Texas drought of record (1948-1957), Priour, a fifth-generation Texan, said he first experienced rain when he was three years old. That magical presence of water profoundly affected his impressions of nature and later, his art work. His signature materials - Texas fossil-laced limestone and green-blue glass - represented his deep attachment to the water and landscape of the Texas Gulf Coast region of his youth.

'Water sparks my imagination, my memories,' Priour wrote in an introduction to 'Around the Water,' an exhibit of his sculpture on view through Dec. 4 at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. 'Water sparks my ability to go places that only exist in my imagination.'

From his hilltop studio on his 50-acre ranch down the road from Hamilton Pool in West Travis County, Priour maintained a prolific, and celebrated, artistic practice.

Large-scale and symbolically abstract, his sculptures were commissioned for public, private and corporate art collections in Corpus Christi, Dallas, Tucson, Chicago and Los Angeles, among other cities. His work is in the permanent collections of the Blanton Museum of Art, the Art Museum of South Texas and the Museo Del Arte in Monterrey, Mexico.

In Austin, Priour's sculptures adorn the Austin Convention Center, the Austin Public Library and the grounds of Laguna Gloria, the Austin Museum of Art's historic location in West Austin. In 2008, he was named Texas State 3-Dimensional Artist.

Priour is remembered as much for his colossally-sized art as he is for his enormous support of other artists and the arts community.

'He had a huge impact because he was so generous with other people,' said Judith Sims, director of the Austin Museum of Art art school and friend of Priour's for more than 30 years. 'He put himself out there, made the connections, did the ground work. He set very high standards for artists. He protected them.'

A longtime board member of the Umlauf Sculpture Garden and Museum, Priour created the Umlauf Prize for an outstanding University of Texas sculpture student, a venture he personally funded. Priour received a bachelor's degree from UT in 1972. He also served on the boards of the Austin Museum of Art, Hamilton Pool Road Scenic Corridor Coalition, Hill Country Alliance and Ballet Austin.

A frequent presence at local exhibit openings and arts events, Priour engaged a much wider community of his artistic peers in 2008 when he launched his Texas Chair Project, making 100 small limestone and glass chairs that he sent, unannounced, to 100 Texas artists he admired, inviting them to make a small chair of their own design. After exhibiting the project, the chairs went on sale with all proceeds going towards art and environmental causes.

Priour is survived by his wife, Paula, and his children Chloe, Stuart and J.J. Memorial services will be scheduled at a later date.