Jo Farb Hernandez and Sam Hernandez

This gift to the University of Wisconsin, established by his wife Jo Farb Hernández (BA Political Science/French ’74) was made in Sam’s memory.

Sam Hernández (MFA ’74) pulled into Madison for the first time after midnight on a frosty December night in 1972. California born and raised, he had little experience with icy roadways, and as he hit a slick patch of black ice he spun his car and trailer completely around, luckily hitting no one or nothing and ending up facing in the right direction, the gleaming Capitol dome in front of him. Nor had he realized that Wisconsin weather could be fatal, so with little money besides what would cover his first semester graduate tuition, he decided to sleep in his car for lack of the resources necessary to rent an apartment. Unbeknownst to him, a sympathetic secretary in the office of the Art Department Chair submitted his name for scholarship support; when the funds came through, not only was he overwhelmed by the generosity of spirit of his new Wisconsin colleagues, but he was able to rent an apartment ($90/month!) and, ultimately, finish his degree without further risk of freezing to death. Sam was the first in his family to go to college. He came to sculpture via his interest in custom automobiles; as his early minimalist sculpture mimicked some of the lines of his favored marques, he was able to use the same skills – and, indeed, sometimes the very same tools – both to restore vintage cars and to assemble sculptures. He taught himself to work with metals, to work with cloth, to solder and sand and polish. His grandfather had been a portrait photographer whose practice focused on the Hispanic communities of California’s East Bay area, many of whose members were immigrants like himself.
As he grew up, Sam spent time with him in his darkroom, and his aesthetic evolved as he came to appreciate the polished mahogany and brass of pre-industrial-era machines like his grandfather’s cameras. He was increasingly attracted to wood, and he also became increasingly interested in the cultural arts of Native Americans. In particular, he was impressed by how the handmade object often revealed the marks of its making; melding these two ideas, his first works at the University of Wisconsin were referential to Victorian-era patent models. He made them his own with reference to classical painting and music, surrealism and Dada, Picasso and Brancusi, Bay Area Funk, global indigenous arts, and futurism. As his work developed, Sam expanded his knowledge and skillful use of a variety of tools, from African adzes, Japanese saws, and Native American crook knives to pneumatic sandblasters. His earlier work was more totemic and symmetrical; later he moved toward a looser, more lyrical direction and a more intuitive manner of working. He expanded his media palette as well, with new pieces in steel and bronze, found objects, ceramics, and even in two-dimensions with oils on canvas or board and graphite on handmade paper. Yet while his media and forms always continued to evolve, his commitment to his concepts, to sculpture’s formal 7 characteristics, and to his craft remained hallmarks of his work throughout his life. He commented: “I make things. In an era of ephemeral and digital arts, of workshops where artists conceive ideas and then direct their minions to realize them, I still painstakingly and physically create every element of each piece, because much of my creative process happens while I work: I fabricate my own joints, patinate my metals, refine the forms of fallen woods with tools as diverse as indigenous adzes and high-powered sandblasters. Yet precise craftsmanship is not my end goal: it services the conceptual foundation of each work. I choose my media for the same reason; these elements support, rather than dictate and limit, my work. “I reflect the New World, but I also attempt to tap Asian philosophical disciplines of working methods and adopt more of an egoless, less-contrived aesthetic. I likewise incorporate other global influences, including those of Old Europe, balancing both the positive and negative of those interactions. My sources may be political, social, cultural, or formal, but as I step back from the initial conceptual inspiration to let my aesthetic gestures take priority, the motivating references may become obscured for the viewer, and the piece is able to realize its own separate and unique essence.”
Sam was the recipient of numerous honors, including a National Endowment for the Arts Visual Artist Fellowship and a Senior Fulbright Scholar Award, and he was named Artist Laureate of Silicon Valley. His work has been featured in numerous books, exhibition catalogues, articles, and reviews, and has been shown in museum and gallery exhibitions internationally. It is included in notable public collections including the Yale University Art Gallery, The Contemporary Museum in Honolulu, the Museum of Contemporary Art in North Macedonia, the Cantor Center at Stanford University, the Oakland Museum of California, the Crocker Art Museum, the San José Museum of Art, the Chazen Museum at the University of Wisconsin, the University of Arizona-Tucson Museum of Art, the New Orleans Museum of Art, and the Museum of Art and History in Santa Cruz, California. He loved teaching and mentoring young art students and spent 37 years as Professor of Art at Santa Clara University. He was named Professor Emeritus upon his retirement. Sam died suddenly in October 2022. He had spoken of creating an endowed scholarship through which he could help young art students – particularly sculptors – to find their own voices.