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Sculptor Jesus Moroles Dies In A Car Wreck Days After Dallas Installation

Political Science Junior Fellows
Jesus Moroles was known internationally for massive granite sculptures

Renowned Texas sculptor Jesus Moroles died Monday in a car accident on I-35 north of Georgetown.

Last Thursday, Moroles and his crew from Rockport, near Port Aransas, delivered four giant granite columns to Dallas. Moroles’ 15-foot tall work, called Spirit Inner Columns, was installed Friday in Hall Arts. That’s the new tower complex going up in the Arts District, across from the Winspear Opera House.

Each of the columns weighs more than 10,000 pounds. Called Spirit Inner Columns, they were installed in what will be the Hall Texas Sculpture Walkway – a path that will run between the office tower that’s nearly finished and the condos and a small hotel that will eventually be built.

The 64-year-old Moroles, a University of North Texas graduate, returned to Rockport Sunday and then left town Monday. Driving alone, he was headed for Chickasha, Oklahoma, where he was artist-in-residence at the University of Science and Arts.

Patricia Meadows is an arts consultant for the Hall Arts complex who worked with Moroles. She says he worked almost exclusively in granite.  “Jesus was magic with stone. He could carve stone, he could chisel stone. It was an earth form for him, so it was a natural form. It was a piece of the earth. I think he is one of the magnificent artists, and I am so sorry for the loss.”

See more of Moroles' work and read an archived interview with the artist on our Art&Seek website.

Correction: The original post stated Moroles was headed for Chickasaw, Oklahoma before the accident. Moroles was headed to Chickasha. 

Jerome Weeks is the Art&Seek producer-reporter for KERA. A professional critic for more than two decades, he was the book columnist for The Dallas Morning News for ten years and the paper’s theater critic for ten years before that. His writing has appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, Los Angeles Times, Newsday, American Theatre and Men’s Vogue magazines.