The official estate of the San Antonio artist — his legacy of paintings, sculpture, and mosaics carried forward by his three children.
Gilbert Durán was one of San Antonio's most beloved artists — a self-taught master who painted Mexican American life with depth, humor, and vitality for over five decades. He exhibited at the Smithsonian Museo Alameda, received the Congressional Hispanic Artist of the Year Award, and saw his work reach screens worldwide in the feature film Say a Little Prayer. His mosaic Menorah of the Southwest stands permanently before San Antonio's Holocaust Museum.
"I like to go to restaurants and look at my paintings, and look at people looking at my work," he said in 2014. "You wish you could hear what they're saying."
Since his passing in July 2023, his legacy is carried forward by all three of his children, working together in the spirit their father instilled in everything he created.
Private Collection of King Juan Carlos I of Spain
Private Collections of Presidentes de México Carlos Salinas de Gortari and Luis Echeverría
Roadrunner (2004) — UTSA Art Collection, exhibited in VOZ: Selections from the UTSA Collection
The Grotto by Carlos Cortés, San Antonio Riverwalk Expansion (2009)
Rose Window Giclées — Official Gift of the City of San Antonio, International Affairs Department
Congressional Hispanic Artist of the Year (1988)
Hidalgo de San Antonio de Bejar — Commissioners Court of Bexar County (1989)
Texas State Ducks Unlimited Artist of the Year (2001)
El Paso Ducks Unlimited Artist of the Year (1997)
The Anne Frank Exhibit, Anne Frank House Amsterdam × San Antonio (2008)
Sabor Botero Exhibition, Smithsonian Museo Alameda (2007)
USAA National Hispanic Heritage Month Exhibition (1999)
Game Conservation International Fine Art Show (1970)
Exhibiting since 1970 — San Antonio, Dallas, Austin, Kerrville, and Monterrey, México
Celebrated works spanning over five decades — paintings, mosaics, bronzes, and prints that captured Mexican American life with depth, humor, and vitality.
Official cover art — “My Boy,” Dylan Gossett (Mercury Records / UMG)
Acrylic on canvas — on view at Sukeban Sushi, Southtown
Mixed media on canvas, 2017
Prints available upon request
Oil on canvas
Prints available upon request
Prints available upon request
2002 — prints available upon request
In the mid-1990s, Durán left San Antonio for El Paso — a deliberate retreat into the desert to reignite the artistic fire that had dimmed. Trading watercolor for oil, he painted an ocean floor where the Southwest refused to drown: cactus standing in for coral, Mimbres pottery breathing bubbles toward the surface, bison skulls resting in the blue. The deep became his desert — a place apart, where he could excavate what had always been there and reshape it into something new. Light always finds its way down.
Oil on canvas, 1996 · 24 × 30 in
Original — inquire for pricing. Giclée prints available upon request.
Two sailfish cut through deep cobalt water, their towering dorsal sails spread wide — indigo fans speckled with black — over silver-white bodies barred in pale blue. Below them, a scattering of bison skulls rests on the sea floor among violet and green underwater brush, prairie bones claimed by the deep. Light filters from the surface above, washing the whole scene in blues.
Oil on canvas, 1996 · 24 × 30 in
Original — inquire for pricing. Giclée prints available upon request.
A lionfish hovers in glowing orange and red, its long white-tipped spines flared like rays, before a Mimbres-style Southwest pottery vessel banded in geometric black-and-white. Dense thickets of red lace coral fill the water behind them, and air bubbles rise from the vessel's mouth toward the surface. Pale sand floor, lit from below the front edge.
Oil on canvas, 1996 · 24 × 30 in
Original — inquire for pricing. Giclée prints available upon request.
Two fish drift side by side through deep blue-green water above a Southwest pottery vessel resting on the sandy floor, its geometric banding echoing the Mimbres tradition. Columns of air bubbles rise from the vessel toward the lit surface, and underwater growth colors the floor around it — a quiet meeting of reef and pueblo.
Oil on canvas, 1996 · 24 × 30 in
Original — inquire for pricing. Giclée prints available upon request.
A nurse shark glides low through deep, indigo water above a sea floor where prickly pear cactus grows in place of coral — spined pads rising from the sand, holding their ground beneath the current. Light from the surface catches the shark's back as it passes, the desert fully surrendered to the sea.
Giclée with oil, 1996 · Artist Proof · 24 × 30 in
Artist Proof, hand-embellished 2015 — inquire for pricing.
Two large jellyfish with fiesta-colored bells — ruffled blue-teal crowns over glowing coral-red centers — drift deeply into the indigo water, trailing tangled multicolored tentacles. At lower right, a Mimbres-style Southwest pottery vessel with black-and-white zigzag banding releases a rising column of air bubbles. White sand floor, lit from above.
The Estate is preparing the official Gilbert Durán catalogue raisonné — the complete register of authenticated works. If you own a work by Gilbert Durán, contact the Estate at gduranart@gmail.com to register it.
The archive runs deeper than what is shown here. These series are currently in cataloguing — works are photographed, documented, and added as the estate completes each register entry.
The Estate is compiling the definitive catalogue raisonné of the complete works of Gilbert Rodulfo Durán — a permanent scholarly record of every known painting, sculpture, and work on paper.
A catalogue raisonné is the authoritative reference for an artist’s body of work. Each entry documents a single work’s title, date, medium, dimensions, signature, condition, provenance, and history of ownership and exhibition. When complete, it becomes the standard by which any work attributed to the artist is measured.
This is a living project. As works are located, examined, and verified, they are added to the register — with the ultimate goal of a published volume honoring the artist’s full legacy.
Submit your work for consideration in the catalogue raisonné.
Get updates on Durán’s legacy — new catalogue entries, exhibitions, and discoveries from the estate archive.
The estate is preparing the published Catalogue Raisonné of Gilbert Durán — the definitive record of the artist’s complete works. Inquiries: gduranart@gmail.com
Gilbert Durán loved to sit in a restaurant and watch people discover his paintings. His work still lives that way — on the walls of San Antonio institutions, in public installations, and in notable private collections across the country.
A Frida work by Durán was presented to descendants of Diego Rivera — a living link between the San Antonio master and the Mexican muralist tradition that shaped him. Certificate of authenticity on file with the Estate.
Original held privately. Prints of Durán's Frida works are available through the Estate.
Thirteen original works on view throughout the dining room
The silver fork sculpture and the Parisian oil painting
Two original mosaics, including the mosaic of Italy
Original works on view
Original works on view — cataloguing underway
Panther, on view
Frida Margarita, original, on view
His work has also graced the walls of Rosario's, Bohanan's, and Boudro's — fixtures of the San Antonio dining rooms he loved.
Durán served as a design consultant to artist Carlos Cortés, contributing concepts including the jaguar heads
From the Mosaics of Broken Glass series. Donated by Julie Jacobson and Duane Paulson; designated for permanent installation at the Holocaust Memorial Museum of San Antonio upon its completion. In the artist’s words: “I dedicated this series to restoring the past by making something beautiful and meaningful one piece at a time.”
Durán felt a deep kinship with the Jewish people — born of the World War II stories his father told him as a boy, and of his admiration for a community that endured and rose. That reverence runs through his work, from the Menorah of the Southwest to his portrait of Anne Frank.
Limited edition and open prints of Gilbert Durán's works are available through the Estate.
Inquire About PrintsAn original Durán painting is the official cover artwork of the 2026 single — the sole visual across every streaming platform.
Watch on YouTube →Durán's paintings appear throughout the acclaimed feature film — and the artist himself appears in its auction scene.
Visit the film →A tribute to the Southtown fixture whose paintings hung at Rosario's, SoLuna, Bohanan's, and Boudro's — and whose Frida Margarita graced the Current's 2014 cover.
Read the article →The Express-News marks the passing of one of San Antonio's most beloved self-taught artists.
Read the article →Durán's thrift-store find of a Waldine Tauch sculpture fragment — and his effort to see the historic "First Inhabitant" fountain restored.
Read the article →The estate licenses Durán's work for film, music, publishing, and commercial use — including official cover artwork for a 2026 Mercury Records / Universal Music Group release and set decoration in the feature film Say a Little Prayer.
Certificates of Authenticity are issued solely by the estate. Collectors and galleries may submit works for review and inclusion in the estate's register.
The estate partners with museums, universities, and cultural institutions on exhibitions and long-term loans of authenticated works.
All reproduction, licensing, and publicity rights in the work, name, and likeness of Gilbert Durán are retained by the estate. The sale of a physical artwork does not convey any right to reproduce it. Unauthorized reproduction or commercial use of the artist's name or imagery requires the estate's written consent.
For licensing, acquisition, authentication, exhibition, and press inquiries.
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