In the back corner of the SJU Archives, located in Drexel Library, two bronze nude sculptures, one of a female body and one of a male, tower over boxes of other archival objects. 

The female sculpture is a hazy light blue, and the male is a spotty emerald green. Both have streaks of off-white and light brown mixed in, complementing the jagged and chaotic surface of the bodies. The figures appear to be suffering, expressing raw feelings of horror and dread.

 The male and female nude sculptures are each 2’4 ¼” in height and 1 foot wide at their widest points.

The sculptures were created by Mexican artist Javier Marín, who was born in 1962 in Uruapan, Michoacán, Mexico. Marín’s career spanned over 30 years. He individually exhibited at more than 90 events and participated in more than 200 collective exhibits in various countries. 

Most of Marín’s artwork consists of sculptures, but he started to incorporate drawing and photography later in his career as well. He is well known for his expressive and precise depictions of the human body and face. Although most of his sculptures were created with clay, Marín later in his career used bronze and polyester resin mixed with things like tobacco, dried meat fibers, rose petals and amaranth seeds in his work.

Carmen Croce, director of Scholarly Press and curator of the new Frances M. Maguire Art Museum, said he purchased the sculptures together in 2011 in Philadelphia for $5,000 each. Croce said the sculptures will be featured in the Mexican Gallery of the Maguire Art Museum, which is set to open in spring 2023.

“Philadelphia has enough art museums,” Croce said. “What would ours hope to contribute to this cultural scene in Philadelphia? Then I realized there’s hardly any Spanish colonial art in Philadelphia.”

Croce said the Latin-American artwork to be featured at the new Maguire Art Museum, including the Javier Marín sculptures, is remarkable, and it may be one of the best such collections in the area.