MARIO R. GONZALES

Mario R. Gonzàles is a Houston native who attended San Jacinto High School (1963-1966) before enrolling at the University of Houston, where he studied photography, lithography, painting, sculpture, and printmaking. For his undergraduate thesis in 1972, Gonzàles worked with Ruben Reyna to paint a 9 x 44-foot mural titled La Marcha Por La Humanidad—an overview of 500 years of Mexican-American history--on a curved wall in the University Center’s basement-level cafeteria, with the sponsorship of the college’s Mexican American Youth Organization. Gonzàles graduated from U of H in 1975 and has shown his work sporadically, while developing a career as a talented event photographer. A 2014 building renovation initially threatened the mural but ultimately preserved the artwork as a bookstore was built around it. In April 2019, Gonzales showed recent works alongside those of Leo Tanguma and Daniel Lechon in Honoring the Masters at Magnolia Grown Art Gallery, 7305 Navigation.

Notes: Interview was conducted on July 24, 2019 in front of the mural in the University Center Barnes and Noble Bookstore. Maria Gaztambide, Director and Chief Curator of Public Art at the University of Houston, arranged access with the manager as filming is not usually allowed inside the store. It’s a bit of a busy location and at times there’s an undercurrent of nearby conversation on the video. Still, it’s a useful overview as Gonzàles talks about his upbringing in Houston and his attitude about art-making, as well as giving a very detailed, step-by-step description of the mural’s iconography. He also talks about his disappointment over an addition to the mural that was proposed and initially approved, then ultimately rejected.