Lucero died in 1951, at the age of 56.
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After moving to Tucson in 1938, Lucero began molding his religious statues from damp riverbed sand. He lived in a cardboard-and-plywood shack beneath the then two-lane Congress Street bridge.
“His work was more visible than he was,” said Matt Perri, 62, who grew up about a block away from where the sculpture park is now.