Bob Wade, a Texas artist whose 40-foot-long iguana sculpture once perched atop the Lone Star Cafe in Manhattan and whose 63-foot-high saxophone lured patrons to a blues nightclub in Houston, died on Dec. 24 at his home in Austin. He was 76.

His wife, Lisa Wade, said the cause was cardiac arrest.

For more than 40 years, Mr. Wade — who was known by the nickname Daddy-O — built whimsical, outsize public art that nodded to Texas’s culture of bigness, gaining renown for his uninhibited style but also drawing attention as a serious artist in some circles.

Like most of his creations, his iguana, which he christened Iggy, could not be ignored.

Inspired by a stuffed iguana a friend had brought him from Mexico, Mr. Wade used wire mesh and polyurethane foam to fabricate the work, a ferocious-looking monster with an open, spiky-toothed mouth, knifelike spines running down its back and an impressively large dewlap.

“I know for sure that Texans are fascinated by critters — all kinds of critters,” he said in a 1999 documentary film about his work, “Too High, Too Wide and Too Long: A Texas-Style Road Trip,” directed by Karen Dinitz.