Celia Álvarez Muñoz American, b. 1937
Celia Álvarez Muñoz is a Mexican American conceptual multimedia artist who is known for her photography, painting, installations, and public art, as well as for her writing. Born in El Paso, Texas, Álvarez Muñoz's work addresses the dichotomy of living between two cultures. Common themes in her practice include: Catholicism, Mexican American experience, the past versus the present and English versus Spanish language. The artist incorporates themes of family and "communal memories" in her pieces. She uses text and images in her work to explore the ambiguous signs and signifiers where cultures meet and to communicate stories of American history, culture, and society.
She studied at Texas Western University (now University of Texas) in El Paso, starting in commercial art classes and finishing a BA in Art & Art Ed, all levels. Quickly thereafter she began teaching art to children. After relocating several times to different parts of the country, Álvarez Muñoz and her husband and their two small children returned to Texas, to Arlington. In 1977, at the age of forty, she enrolled in graduate school at North Texas State University (NTSU; now University of North Texas) in Denton. There she took courses with the artists Vernon Fisher (b.1943) and Al Souza (b.1944), who influenced her conceptual practice across mediums, from artist's books and photographs to installations and public works. While attending NTSU, she began work on her series Enlightenment.Enlightenment tapped into her memories of growing up along the Mexican border in the aftermath of the Great Depression and WWII. Deeply committed to her bilingual and bicultural heritage, the artist plays with text, puns, and double meanings, regularly addressing such themes as cognitive development and language acquisition. Her most recent work continues to relate to the experiences of living in the physical as well as the psychological and political border zone.
Álvarez Muñoz has received numerous awards, including two National Endowment for the Arts grants (1988, 1991) and the Art League Houston Lifetime Achievement Award in the Visual Arts. She was among the first cohort to recieve the landmark Latinx Artist Fellowship award and was named 2-D Artist of 2022 by the Texas Comission for the Arts.
Her work has been exhibited widely in group exhibitions, such as the Whitney Biennial (1991), and in solo presentations at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (1991); Dallas Museum of Art (1991); Capp Street Project, San Francisco (1994); and University of Texas at Arlington (2002). Her work has been acquired by public collections, including the Art Institute of Chicago; Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; and Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Muñoz’s work was included in the invitational traveling exhibition Our Journeys/Our Stories: Portraits of Latino Achievement by the Smithsonian Institution and Radical Women: Latin American Art, 1960–1985, among other exhibits. A career retrospective is scheduled for 2023 at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego.
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Celia Álvarez MuñozQuince (Fifteen), 2007Serigraph26 x 22 in
66 x 55.9 cmEdition of 48 -
Celia Álvarez MuñozSweet Nothings, 1998Photoetching and silkscreen19.5 x 26 in
49.5 x 66 cmEdition of 50 -
Celia Álvarez MuñozTolido (Spanglish Toilet), 1997Silkscreen26 x 22 in
66 x 55.9 cmEdition of 48 -
Celia Álvarez MuñozPlease Don't Paint My Brown Eyes Blue, 19943-D Photoetching40 x 30 in
101.6 x 76.2 cmEdition of 50 -
Celia Álvarez MuñozPetrocuatl, 1992Cibachrome print20 x 16 in
50.8 x 40.6 cmEdition of 5 -
Celia Álvarez MuñozEnlightenment #4: Which Came First?, 1982Five-color photographs, letterpress on rag paper, and graphite on Gekkeikan homespun paper12 x 19 in
30.5 x 48.3 cm10
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Contemporary Latinx and Latin American Printmakers
September 28 - November 4, 2022 New York CityRuiz-Healy Art is thrilled to present Contemporary Latinx and Latin American Printmakers. The exhibition will present works by César A. Martínez, Juan de Dios Mora, Marta Sánchez, Richard Armendariz, Moses Ros, Pedro Friedeberg, Patssi Valdez, Johanna Calle, Liliana Porter, Michael Menchaca, Francisco Toledo, Carlos Amorales, Vicente Rojo, Cisco Jiménez, Rodolfo Morales, Dr. Lakra, Modesto Bernardo, Ethel Shipton, Alejandro Diaz, Celia Álvarez Muñoz, Roger Von Gunten, Pedro Diego Alvarado-Rivera, Rodolfo Morales, and Carlos Rosales-Silva.Read more -
Celia Álvarez Muñoz: Semejantes Personajes/Significant Personalities
September 22 - October 22, 2022 San AntonioRuiz-Healy Art is pleased to announce Celia Álvarez Muñoz: Semejantes Personajes/Significant Personalities in conjunction with FOTOSEPTIEMBRE USA International Photography Festival. The exhibition will be a selection of her 2002 exhibition at Blue Star Contemporary, San Antonio, TX which features a collection of forty-one portraits of San Antonio Latinx artists. This is the artist’s first solo exhibition with the gallery. In 2021, Álvarez Muñoz was awarded the Latinx Artist Fellowship, a groundbreaking initiative that recognizes 15 of the most compelling Latinx visual artists working in the United States today.Read more -
McNay Print Fair
San Antonio April 29 - May 1, 2022 San AntonioRuiz-Healy Art is thrilled to participate in the 26th edition of the McNay Print Fair, the only major print fair in the Southwestern United States. Ruiz-Healy Art is delighted to feature prints by Marta Sánchez, Richard Armendariz, Juan de Dios Mora, Ethel Shipton, and Celia Álvarez Muñoz, among others.Read more -
23rd Annual McNay Print Fair
McNay Museum of Art, San Antonio March 2 - 3, 2019 San AntonioRuiz-Healy Art presents works at the McNay's 23rd annual Print Fair.Artists featured at the McNay Print Fair will include: Jennifer Ling Datchuk, Ethel Shipton, Rufino Tamayo, Nate Cassie, Graciela Iturbide, Chuck Ramirez, Pedro Friedeberg, Pedro Diego Alvarado, Mark Schlesinger, and Richard Armendariz.Read more
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Celia Alvarez Muñoz
A ver series monograph / Essay by Roberto Tejada Roberto Tejada, 2009 Hardcover, 128 pages
Publisher: UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center
ISBN: 0895511118
Dimensions: 6.5 x 0.7 x 9.5 inches Read more -
Celia Álvarez Muñoz: Obras
Art League Houston / Essay by Roberto Tejada Roberto Tejeda, 2020 Hardcover, 115 pages
Publisher: Cattywampus Press
ISBN: 0578738899 Read more -
Chicano Art: Resistance and Affirmation, 1965-1985
Celia Alvarez Muñoz, Mel Casas, César A. Martínez Richard Criswold Del Castillo, Teresa McKenna & Yvonne Yarbro-Bejarano, editors, 1991 Softcover, 373 pages
Publisher: Wight Art Gallery, University of California, Los Angeles
ISBN: 0943739152
Dimensions: 9.25 x 1.25 x 12.5 in Read more -
Contemporary Chicana and Chicano Art: Artists, Works, Culture, and Education
Essays by Gary D. Keller, Mary Erickson, Kaytie Johnson, and Joaquín Alvarado Gary D. Keller, Mary Erickson, Kaytie Johnson, Joaquín Alvarado, 2003 Read more -
Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art / Smithsonian American Art Museum
Chuck Ramirez, Celia Álvarez Muñoz, Mel Casas, Jesse Amado Essay by E. Carmen Ramos, and introduction by Tomás Ybarra-Frausto, 2014 Hard Cover, 368 pages
Publisher: Smithsonian American Art Museum
ISBN: 978-0-937311-94-1
Dimensions: 10 x 12" Read more