Ernesto Tamariz Galicia (11 January 1904 – 30 September 1988) was a 20th-century Mexican sculptor specialized in public monuments, religious statues and funerary art.
[1] His most famous work is "Altar to the Fatherland" (Altar a la patria), a memorial to the Mexican cadets killed during the Battle of Chapultepec (Niños Héroes).
He also sculpted the statue of St Pio of Pietrelcina and John Paul II at the old Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe,[3] the new central altar of the Metropolitan Cathedral of Mexico City, the tomb of Alfonso Reyes at the Rotunda of Illustrious People and the tomb of Ignacio Zaragoza,[2] among others.
According to María Estela Duarte, curator of Épica y gloria monumental ("Epic and monumental glory"), a posthumous exposition of Tamariz at the Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo Museum of Mexico City, the sculptor completed some 128 monuments throughout Mexico.
[4]