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Edward Gonzales knew at an early age that he wanted to be an artist. By four he was creating art using sticks to draw pictures in the dirt in his backyard. By the seventh grade he had read every art book in local public libraries. By the time Edward was in his senior year in high school he had won every art award available to students in New Mexico.

But growing up in a working class neighborhood of Albuquerque, Edward did not receive encouragement to pursue the arts as a career. During his one brief meeting with a high school counselor in his senior year Edward was told, “I hear you’re good with your hands. You should get training as an auto mechanic.”

Ignoring that advice, Edward instead chose to enroll in the studio art program at the University of New Mexico. It was a momentous decision: he would become not only the first in his family but the first in his neighborhood to go to college. Before he could graduate however, he was drafted into the army. Gonzales served in Vietnam, then returned to finish his last year at UNM where he received his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1971. Once home he decided to devote his art to the beauty and cultural traditions of New Mexico.

Weems Artfest

“When I paint,” Gonzales explains, “I search to create my impression of the physical and spiritual world that surrounds us. I choose to reflect the power and beauty of humanity. My art is primarily figurative and southwestern in theme but my first concern is the emotional impact the art carries.”

In much of this work Gonzales’s overriding focus has been a positive representation of his cultural heritage. “For years, artists have been skirting the issue of representing Hispanics in their art,” he told a journalist. “Then, when Hispanics are depicted, they either look like ghosts or they’re old and wrinkled. They are frightening images that denigrate and give little sense of dignity to the Hispanic people. My art is a reaction to that. My art gives concrete visibility to the Chicano experience in New Mexico and the Southwest.”

Books had a special place in the young artist’s creative development. “Reading, as well as just looking at the pictures in art books when I was very young, was critical to my becoming an artist,” Gonzales states. “The art world was very distant from the one I lived in. But books made the art world real and attainable for me. In my high school library I read a chapbook on Patrocinio Barela, the Taos wood carver. It was an enormous revelation to learn that a poor Hispanic could create great works of art.”  

For that reason, Edward produces a number of paintings among a larger body of art, which stress literacy and education. They have been published as posters and are in school systems throughout the country.

Edward at age 12 drawing

To honor his contribution to art, education and culture, the Albuquerque Public Schools in 2004 named a new school for him. Edward Gonzales Elementary is located on the city’s west side and is now the state’s largest elementary school.

In 1998 Gonzales was named Hispanic Role Model of the Year by Southland Corporation (7-Eleven Stores) for the posters’ positive contribution to education. In 2001 Edward Gonzales served as New Mexico's honorary chair for the National Education Association's Read Across America project. Click here to read the interview with Edward from the website of the NEA.

The Edward Gonzales image, I Pledge Allegiance, was the cover of the 2002 U.S. Senate Democratic report on the progress of Hispanic education. The poster, I Pledge Allegiance, was on display in the White House during Hispanic Heritage month, October, 2003. The image became the cover for their invitation to Hispanic Heritage Month events.