Moises Menendez, MD, FACS

Surgeon • Portrait Artist

For Moises Menendez, MD, FACS, art began long before surgery.

Born in Lima, Peru, he began drawing at about seven years of age, sketching trains, horses and airplanes. His artistic ability was recognized while he was still in school, but the demands of medical education and surgical training largely displaced art for many years.

Dr. Menendez came to the United States in 1970 for medical and surgical training and ultimately established his career in Arkansas. Board-certified in general surgery and a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons, he practiced general, vascular and thoracic surgery and wound care during a career spanning more than four decades.

Art nevertheless remained part of his life. In the 1990s he began working with other artists in southern Arkansas and studied with Argentine painter Jorge Villegas. The birth of his first granddaughter in 2005 inspired a renewed commitment to portraiture.

Working primarily in pastel and charcoal, but also in graphite, oil and watercolor, Dr. Menendez has created portraits of family members as well as more than 50 scientists, inventors and surgeons whose contributions he wished to recognize. His portrait of pioneering surgeon Mark Ravitch has appeared in the surgical literature.

His work has been exhibited in Arkansas, and in 2026 the South Arkansas Arts Center presented a solo exhibition, Miscellaneous Portraits, Landscapes, and Still Life. He is also represented in the Arkansas Arts Council’s Juried Artist Directory.

Portraiture requires prolonged attention to another person—to proportion and expression, but also to individuality. Dr. Menendez’s work offers a particularly human example of the intersection of art and medicine: the practice of looking carefully enough to see not simply a face, but a person.