Luis Jiménez was born in 1940 in El Paso, TX. He lived in both New Mexico and Texas. From an early age, Jiménez worked in his father’s neon-sign making shop and witnessed the vibrant music and dance festivals in his community. Subject matter and images reflecting Southwestern culture are incorporated into his emotive, figurative works. Jiménez frequently works out ideas for his brightly-hued, molded fiberglass sculptures in drawings rendered with colored pencils.
Works by Jiménez are in the collections of many major museums in the United States, such as The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, NY; Chicago Art Institute, Chicago, IL; Albright-Knox Gallery, Buffalo, NY; the Museum of Fine Arts in Santa Fe, NM; and the San Antonio Museum of Art, San Antonio, TX; and in numerous private collections. Jiménez had been commissioned to create works for public sites in cities in Texas, California, New York, Pennsylnvania, and other states. In 2000, Jiménez curarted the Chispa exhibition held at Apexart in New York City.

Jiménez was a professor of painting and sculpture at the University of Houston, TX. He died in his studio at the age of 65 when a sculpture he had been working on for ten years had fallen loose from its support ultimately causing him fatal injuries.