By Miguel Juarez (Updated January 5, 2021, 11:44 a.m.)
Juan Sandoval II passed away in his home this morning at 5:00 a.m. Sandoval was born in Monte Vista, Colorado on January 7, 1946 and he would have celebrated his 75th birthday next Thursday. He was a former Special Collections Librarian and Art Bibliographer at the University of Texas at El Paso. He received his MLS (Library Science) degree at the University of Denver in 1975 before moving to El Paso to work as a librarian in the 1980s.
Claudia Rivers, Director of the University of Texas at El Paso Department of Special Collections, who worked with Juan before his retirement. She said that his nephew, Raymond Griggs, had taken him home last week and had set up 24/7 hospice care for him. Rivers said she visited him on Friday, December 18th and he told her: “If I die, tell my nephew ‘Good Luck,’ ”
Services are pending and a future memorial will probably be held online.
Juan was an avid art collector, who amassed a collection of over 1,000 works of Chicano and Latin American art over his life. In a conversation with Sandoval, he said he was disillusioned with the creation and politics of the Mexican American Cultural Art Center, where he was originally going to donate his collection. Rivers said he was pleased he left a legacy through the donation of his art work to Mexic-Arte in Austin, Texas, where it is currently on display.
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