Dionicio Rodríguez (1891–1955) was a Mexican-born

artist An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating the work of art. The most common usage (in both everyday speech and academic discourse) refers to a practitioner in the visual arts o ...

and

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs, and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

whose work can be seen in Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, New Mexico, Tennessee, and Texas, as well as Washington, D.C., and Mexico City. His work is noted for its unique style of

concrete Concrete is a composite material composed of aggregate bound together with a fluid cement that cures to a solid over time. It is the second-most-used substance (after water), the most–widely used building material, and the most-manufactur ...

construction that imitates

wood Wood is a structural tissue/material found as xylem in the stems and roots of trees and other woody plants. It is an organic materiala natural composite of cellulosic fibers that are strong in tension and embedded in a matrix of lignin t ...

, known as '' Faux Bois'' (French for ''false wood''). Gates, benches and artificial rock formations were created by the artist to invite visitors to rest or explore the landscape. Many of his major works of art are listed in the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

Biography

Rodríguez was born on April 11, 1891, in

Toluca Toluca , officially Toluca de Lerdo , is the States of Mexico, state capital of the State of Mexico as well as the seat of the Municipality of Toluca. Toluca has a population of 910,608 as of the 2020 census. The city forms the core of the Grea ...

State of Mexico The State of Mexico, officially just Mexico, is one of the 32 federal entities of the United Mexican States. Colloquially known as Edomex (from , the abbreviation of , and ), to distinguish it from the name of the whole country, it is the mo ...

, in

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

to Catarino Rodríguez and Luz Alegria de Rodríguez. His family moved to

Mexico City Mexico City is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Mexico, largest city of Mexico, as well as the List of North American cities by population, most populous city in North America. It is one of the most important cultural and finan ...

when he was young. When he was older, he worked with his father and brother as a

bricklayer A bricklayer, which is related to but different from a mason, is a craftsperson and tradesperson who lays bricks to construct brickwork. The terms also refer to personnel who use blocks to construct blockwork walls and other forms of maso ...

.Patsy Pittman Light. ''Capturing Nature: The Cement Sculpture of Dionicio Rodriquez''. Texas A&M University Press, College Station, 2008. p 19. Sometime later in Mexico City Rodríguez was hired by Luis Robles Gil, a contractor and civil engineer, and by J.W. Douglas who Rodríguez made cement objects for. Rodríguez, with letters of recommendation from Douglas and Gil, left Mexico City in the early 1920s for

Monterrey Monterrey (, , abbreviated as MtY) is the capital and largest city of the northeastern Mexican state of Nuevo León. It is the ninth-largest city and the second largest metropolitan area, after Greater Mexico City. Located at the foothills of th ...

, Mexico. In Monterrey he met up with Máximo Cortés’ father who told Rodriquez that he should move to Laredo to work with his son. He moved on to

Laredo, Texas Laredo ( ; ) is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the county seat of Webb County, Texas, Webb County, on the north bank of the Rio Grande in South Texas, across from Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, Mexico. Founded in 1755, Laredo grew from a villag ...

shortly after and met up with Máximo Cortés, a fellow artisan, who was currently working on casting cement embellishments for a school. They worked with each other briefly before Rodríguez left for

San Antonio San Antonio ( ; Spanish for " Saint Anthony") is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the most populous city in Greater San Antonio. San Antonio is the third-largest metropolitan area in Texas and the 24th-largest metropolitan area in the ...

. He arrived in

in 1924 and briefly worked at the Alamo cement company (1924-1925). Rodríguez died at the Robert B. Green hospital in

on December 16, 1955, he was 64 when he passed and he was buried at the San Fernando Cemetery #2. He had no immediate survivors. Unknown if he ever married, his death certificate claims he’s a widower but there’s no proof she actually exists.

Works

San Antonio

For the Japanese Tea Gardens in San Antonio, Rodríguez replicated a

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

ese

Torii A is a traditional culture of Japan, Japanese gate most commonly found at the entrance of or within a Shinto shrine, where it symbolically marks the transition from the mundane to the sacred, and a spot where kami are welcomed and thought to ...

gate at the entrance to the

gardens A garden is a planned space, usually outdoors, set aside for the cultivation, display, and enjoyment of plants and other forms of nature. The single feature identifying even the wildest wild garden is ''control''. The garden can incorporate bot ...

. This piece was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2005 With the rise of anti-Japanese sentiment of

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

in the 1940s, the gardens were renamed the Chinese Tea Gardens. In 1984, the city restored the original "Japanese Tea Garden" designation in a ceremony. At least eight of his other sculptures in San Antonio: the Buckeye Park Gate; the Bridge in Brackenridge Park; the Fence at Alamo Cement Company; the Fountain at Alamo Cement Company; the Jacala Restaurant; locations in Miraflores Park; the Stations of the Cross and Grotto at the Shrine of St. Anthony de Padua; the Trolley Stop in Alamo Heights, were also added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2004 and 2005

Memorial Park Cemetery

In 1935 Rodríguez was hired to beautify the Memorial Park Cemetery, Memphis,

Tennessee Tennessee (, ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders Kentucky to the north, Virginia to the northeast, North Carolina t ...

, with

sculptures Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...

. ''Annie Laurie Wishing Chair'', ''Broken

Tree In botany, a tree is a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, usually supporting branches and leaves. In some usages, the definition of a tree may be narrower, e.g., including only woody plants with secondary growth, only ...

Bench, Abrahams

Oak An oak is a hardwood tree or shrub in the genus ''Quercus'' of the beech family. They have spirally arranged leaves, often with lobed edges, and a nut called an acorn, borne within a cup. The genus is widely distributed in the Northern Hemisp ...

'', ''Pool of

Hebron Hebron (; , or ; , ) is a Palestinian city in the southern West Bank, south of Jerusalem. Hebron is capital of the Hebron Governorate, the largest Governorates of Palestine, governorate in the West Bank. With a population of 201,063 in ...

'' and ''

Cave Caves or caverns are natural voids under the Earth's Planetary surface, surface. Caves often form by the weathering of rock and often extend deep underground. Exogene caves are smaller openings that extend a relatively short distance undergrou ...

of Machpelah'' are some of the most important sculptures that can be found throughout the

cemetery A cemetery, burial ground, gravesite, graveyard, or a green space called a memorial park or memorial garden, is a place where the remains of many death, dead people are burial, buried or otherwise entombed. The word ''cemetery'' (from Greek ...

.http://www.memorialparkfuneralandcemetery.com/history.aspx Memorial Park Cemetery website

Cedar Hill Cemetery

Working in Cedar Hill Cemetery just outside

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

, in suburban

Suitland, Maryland Suitland is a suburb of Washington, D.C., approximately one mile (1.6 km) southeast of Washington, D.C. Suitland is a census designated place (CDP), as of the 2020 census, its population was 25,839. Prior to 2010, it was part of the Suitland ...

, in 1936 and 1937, Rodríguez built numerous sculptural pieces, including a fallen tree bench, a tiled block bench, two bridges with branch railings and log decks, a tree shelter, and an Annie Laurie Wishing Chair.''The Sculptures of Dionicio Rodriguez'', Cedar Hill Cemetery, 4111 Pennsylvania Avenue, Suitland, MD 20746, 20 Jan 2014.

Crystal Shrine Grotto

Construction of the Crystal Shrine

Grotto A grotto or grot is a natural or artificial cave or covered recess. Naturally occurring grottoes are often small caves near water that are usually flooded or often flooded at high tide. Sometimes, artificial grottoes are used as garden fea ...

began in 1938. The grotto is a 60-foot (18.3-meter) deep, hand-built

cave Caves or caverns are natural voids under the Earth's Planetary surface, surface. Caves often form by the weathering of rock and often extend deep underground. Exogene caves are smaller openings that extend a relatively short distance undergrou ...

in a hillside near the center of the cemetery, filled with five

ton Ton is any of several units of measure of mass, volume or force. It has a long history and has acquired several meanings and uses. As a unit of mass, ''ton'' can mean: * the '' long ton'', which is * the ''tonne'', also called the ''metric ...

s (4.5 metric tons) of

quartz Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica (silicon dioxide). The Atom, atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon–oxygen Tetrahedral molecular geometry, tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tet ...

crystal A crystal or crystalline solid is a solid material whose constituents (such as atoms, molecules, or ions) are arranged in a highly ordered microscopic structure, forming a crystal lattice that extends in all directions. In addition, macros ...

, hence the name ''Crystal Shrine Grotto''. The

shrines A shrine ( "case or chest for books or papers"; Old French: ''escrin'' "box or case") is a sacred space dedicated to a specific deity, ancestor worship, ancestor, hero, martyr, saint, Daemon (mythology), daemon, or similar figure of respect, wh ...

in the grotto illustrate the stages of "

Christ Jesus ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, and many other names and titles, was a 1st-century Jewish preacher and religious leader. He is the Jesus in Christianity, central figure of Christianity, the M ...

's Journey on the

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to Planetary habitability, harbor life. This is enabled by Earth being an ocean world, the only one in the Solar System sustaining liquid surface water. Almost all ...

from

Birth Birth is the act or process of bearing or bringing forth offspring, also referred to in technical contexts as parturition. In mammals, the process is initiated by hormones which cause the muscular walls of the uterus to contract, expelling the f ...

Resurrection Resurrection or anastasis is the concept of coming back to life after death. Reincarnation is a similar process hypothesized by other religions involving the same person or deity returning to another body. The disappearance of a body is anothe ...

". Rodríguez' sculptures and the Crystal Shrine Grotto in the Memorial Park Cemetery are listed in the

Woodlawn Garden of Memories

At least five of the sculptural pieces in the Woodlawn Garden of Memories in

Houston Houston ( ) is the List of cities in Texas by population, most populous city in the U.S. state of Texas and in the Southern United States. Located in Southeast Texas near Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, it is the county seat, seat of ...

are the work of Rodriguez circa 1940: the 25-foot (7.6-meter) tall cross and its surrounding four benches; a flower planter basket; a 60-foot (18.3-meter) long fallen tree bench; and an

Annie Laurie "Annie Laurie" is an old Scottish song based on a poem said to have been written by William Douglas (1672 - c1760 ) of Dumfriesshire, about his romance with Annie Laurie (1682–1764). The words were modified and the tune was added by Alicia Ann ...

Wishing Chair.

Other works

* Aviary at the Houston Zoo, 1513 N. McGregor Houston, TX, NRHP-listed * Buckeye Park Gate, 1600 W. Wildwood San Antonio, TX, NRHP-listed * Chinese Sunken Garden Gate, Brackenridge Park, 400 N. St. Mary's St. San Antonio, TX, NRHP-listed * Couchwood, 601 Couchwood Rd., Shorewood Hills, AR, NRHP-listed * Crestview Park, Crestview and Cherry Hill Drives, North Little Rock, AR, NRHP-listed * Dionicio Rodriguez Bridge in Brackenridge Park, 400 N. St. Mary's St. San Antonio, TX, NRHP-listed * Eddingston Court, 3300 Proctor St. Port Arthur, TX, NRHP-listed * Elmwood Cemetery, 600 Martin Luther King Jr Dr, Birmingham, AL * Fence at Alamo Cement Company, 7300 Jones Maltsberger Rd. San Antonio, TX, NRHP-listed * Fountain at Alamo Cement Company, 7300 Jones Maltsberger Rd. San Antonio, TX, NRHP-listed * Gate, Fence and Hollow Tree Shelter Designed by Dionicio Rodriguez, 320 Oak St. Clayton, NM, NRHP-listed * Gazebo for Albert Steves, 105 FM 473, at east portion of property Comfort, TX, NRHP-listed * Gazebo for James Richard Marmion, 1214 County Rd. Sweeny, TX, NRHP-listed * Jacala Restaurant, 2702 N. St. Mary's St. San Antonio, TX, NRHP-listed * Lakewood Park, Address Restricted North Little Rock, AR, NRHP-listed * Little Switzerland, Address Restricted Shorewood Hills, AR, NRHP-listed * Miraflores Park (seven works), 1184 E Hildebrand Ave. San Antonio, TX, NRHP-listed * Palapa Table for James Richard Marmion, 1214 County Rd. Sweeny, TX, NRHP-listed * T. R. Pugh Memorial Park, 3800 Lakeshore Drive, North Little Rock, AR, NRHP-listed * Sculptures of Dionicio Rodriguez at Memorial Park Cemetery, 5668 Poplar Ave.

Memphis, TN Memphis is a city in Shelby County, Tennessee, United States, and its county seat. Situated along the Mississippi River, it had a population of 633,104 at the 2020 census, making it the second-most populous city in Tennessee, the fifth-most p ...

, NRHP-listed * Stations of the Cross and Grotto at the Shrine of St. Anthony de Padua (grotto and 14 stations), 100 Peter Baque Rd. San Antonio, TX, NRHP-listed * Trolley Stop in Alamo Heights, 4900 blk of Broadway Alamo Heights, TX, NRHP-listed * Woodlawn Garden of Memories Cemetery, 1101 Antoine Houston, TX, NRHP-listed

References

External links

* http://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=503 EncyclopediaOfArkansas.net
''Capturing Nature: The Cement Sculpture of Dionicio Rodriguez''
a book about Rodriguez's work
Studio Cortes
the professional website of Carlos Cortes, great-nephew of Dionicio Rodriguez, who is carrying on the family artistic tradition {{DEFAULTSORT:Rodriguez, Dionicio Mexican sculptors Mexican male sculptors Mexican architects Concrete art 1891 births 1955 deaths People from Toluca Mexican emigrants to the United States 20th-century sculptors