Edward Chávez was born in a small village along the Santa Fe Trail in New Mexico. His childhood was spent in Colorado, where he developed a love of horses and a love of drawing. He only started painting when he graduated from high school, at which time he went to work with Frank Mechau at the Broadmoor Art Academy in Colorado Springs. The blossoming art scene at Broadmoor attracted as teachers artists from Woodstock, New York such as John Carlson. Under Mechau's supervision Chávez completed a mural for the Glenwood Springs, Colorado Post Office. He worked on this project with Jenne Magafan, whose twin sister Ethel was also a student of Mechau's. Chávez was later to marry Jenne. Work on other federal projects ensued, including murals for Post Offices in Center, Texas and Geneva, Nebraska and a high school in Denver. During the war Chávez painted a mural at Fort Warren, Wyoming, where he had gone for basic training, and he was named to a documentary art unit that was to record the war effort in photographs and paintings. The team included Woodstock artists such as Edward Millman and Fletcher Martin. As the war progressed the Magafan sisters were urged by the Woodstock instructors at Broadmoor to move east. So when Chávez returned from the war, it was to New York State that he would go. He was to remain in Woodstock the rest of his life, with trips to the Southwest whenever he could arrange them. It was the cameraderie of Woodstock that attracted him, and the proximity of New York City art galleries and dealers made it an attractive location professionally. Critics were quick to recognize his abilities. Tragically, in 1952, Jenne died suddenly, but by this time Chávez was too well established in Woodstock to leave. He would sing and play his guitar for his fellow artists. And as time went on, he would find himself painting with a reclusive Bob Dylan as his only audience. Chávez remarried in 1967 and the next year he worked with Robert Angeloch, Franklin Alexander, Lon Clark and W.J. Jerominek to establish the Woodstock School of Art. He and his wife moved briefly to Taos. But, although he admired Chicano art, he felt that he was too mature an artist to move in so political a direction. Indeed, he didn't feel that he fit in — either with the artists in Taos or with the art community as it had evolved in Woodstock. As a result he exhibited less in his later years although he continued to paint productively.Creekside BarrelsChow Line
Critical Analysis
Chávez specified his earliest artistic influence as coming from Pieter Bruegel. He saw Bruegel as a genre painter, and he felt that his own early work, a part of American scene painting, derived from the same spirit. He saw Bruegel's strength as coming from the connection of his art with his audience, and Chávez sought to make a similar connection with his audience. Even as his work after the War evolved toward more abstract subjects, he saw the connection as continuing to exist — through the way in which he incorporated references to nature into his paintings. In this sense he approved of the Pop Art movement, which he saw as expressing a desire for more direct communication with its audience. He lamented the increasing commercialization of art, since his primary desire was to paint, not simply to find some novelty that would attract new buyers. Artists such as Raoul Hauge and Philip Guston were people he admired, since they worked more according to their own interests rather than to follow the current art market.
Murals
Glenwood Springs, Colorado - White River National Forest Headquarters: Decorative Map
