“A thoughtful, comprehensive, and visually rich assessment of
Enrique Alférez’s life and art.”
— Josephine Reed, National Endowment for the Arts, ArtWorks podcast
Enrique Alférez: Sculptor (The Historic New Orleans Collection, 2021)
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Research.
I had privileged access to Enrique Alérez’s family homes and papers in New Orleans and Morelia, Michoacán. In 1995, I began collecting ephemera and recordings of Alférez. In 2013, I began deep research to write Alférez’s first biography. I conducted interviews with family, friends, contemporaries, and experts, and relied on archives and records from more than 45 organizations, museums, and libraries.
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Write.
There are many places I enjoyed writing this book: at my desk in our attic, in my favorite gray chair, at a coffee shop one afternoon in London, in libraries. But my all-time favorite was at the dining table in the Alférez family home in Morelia, overlooking the garden that the family cultivated with coffee, persimmon, pear, and pomegranate over the years, where sheaths of bamboo clapped and rattled with the wind.
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Publish.
Enrique Alférez: Sculptor was a COVID book, intended for publication in 2020 but released in 2021. I enjoyed a virtual launch that brought together friends and family from around the world, co-hosted by The Historic New Orleans Collection and the Consulado General de México en Raleigh, Carolina del Norte. Truly, writing this book and having a hand in helping to preserve Enrique Alférez’s art and legacy is one of the great joys of my life.
Enrique Alférez was a 20th century Mexican sculptor who helped shape the visual landscape of New Orleans. He was born in Zacatecas in 1903. After service in the Mexican Revolution as a youth, he emigrated to El Paso; studied in Chicago; and, in 1929, made his way to Louisiana. For almost 70 years, he worked in New Orleans. His lasting imprint is seen among figurative sculptures, monuments, fountains, and architectural details in prominent locations from the Central Business District to the shore of Lake Pontchartrain and beyond. In my writing, I make observe connections between his art and homeland, international outlook, and Indigenous Nahua heritage.
Photographs from Enrique Alférez: Sculptor, from left to right: A young Alférez, likely in El Paso, c. 1923; Alférez with his friend, the artist and writer Tom Lea, and Lea’s father, also a Tom, a former mayor of El Paso; at luncheon at Lorado Taft’s Midway Studio, Chicago, between 1924 and 1928.
Photos courtesy Peggy Alférez Family Papers, The Tom Lea Institute, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Archives.
Alférez worked across many mediums, creating works in pencil, stone, wood, plaster, steel, clay, concrete, bronze, lead, silver, and gold.
NEA Interview
Listen to an interview with Katie Bowler Young about her biography Enrique Alférez: Sculptor, and connections between poetry and life writing. Interview conducted by Josephine Reed for “ArtWorks,” a podcast produced by the National Endowment for the Arts.
Purchase online:
Order from:
Your favorite independent bookstore. In New Orleans, visit Octavia Books.
In the News:
The Reading Life, WWNO: Interview with author Katie Bowler Young
Steppin Out, WYES: Interview with author Katie Bowler Young
WGNO: ENRIQUE ALFÉREZ Sculptor: A New Book about one of NOLA’s most Renown Artists.
Nola.com: Biography of sculptor Alférez recounts a long career, sometimes touched by controversy
Nola.com: Panels from former Times-Picayune building to go on display at New Orleans Museum of Art
Top photo: Tlaloc Alférez, daughter of sculptor Enrique Alférez, and Katie Bowler Young in conversation at the New Orleans Museum of Art, May 2022. Photo by Donn Young. | Watch video.
Download a promo fact sheet about the book.
