Born in San Jose, Costa Rica, Zuñiga worked as a helper in his father’s studio of religious sculpture at age sixteen. Zuñiga was only eighteen when he carved a large maternal figure in stone. In 1936 he moved to Mexico, never to reside elsewhere.
Zuñiga's awards are many. He was given the first prize for sculpture by the National Institute of Fine Arts in 1979 in Costa Rica, while in 1981 he was given a gold medal in Parma, Italy. The following year on November 19 the county and city of Los Angeles declared it “Francisco Zuñiga Day” by the Mayor’s proclamation. In 1984 he received the Kotaro Takamura Award for Sculpture in Hakone-Machi, Japan.
Zuñiga's works are housed at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C.; at the University of California at Los Angeles, California; at the Museum of Modern Art in Mexico City; at the Fine Arts Gallery of San Diego, California; at the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University and at the Middelheim Museum in Antwerp, Belgium.
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