Nivia Gonzalez
Nivia Gonzalez (d. 2017) was an artist and educator from San Antonio, TX who graduated with a B.A. in Art from Trinity University in 1983. Gonzalez achieved national and international recognition for her vibrant paintings and lithographs of brown women.
Gonzalez attended Alamo Heights High School and in 1964 she had her first solo exhibition at the Witte Museum in San Antonio, TX. From 1964-1971 Gonzalez took classes at Trinity University and the Cooper Union School of Art and Architecture in New York City. She returned to Trinity University in the fall of 1981 and graduated with a Bachelor's in Fine Arts in the spring of 1983. During her time at Trinity, Nivia contributed writings and drawings to the Trinity Review and served as the arts publicity assistant of Synthesis, a short lived art department sponsored publication. Later, she received a Master’s in Art Education from the University of Texas at Austin.
After her time at Trinity, Nivia Gonzalez would go on to show her work in numerous solo and group exhibitions in San Antonio and across the United States. One of her most significant achievements was her directorship of the Bexar County Jail Arts program in 1986 where she taught art to inmates in the Bexar County jail system. Through the guidance of Gonzalez, a group of inmates created a large-scale mural that was used as the backdrop for Pope John Paul II’s visit to San Antonio in 1987.
In 1997, Nivia Gonzalez was in a car accident that left her in a coma with severe head injuries and partial paralysis. Following her accident she moved to Austin, TX and began to paint again in the early 2000s after years of recovery. She would go on to show this new work in a few solo and group exhibitions in San Antonio, Austin, and Palm Springs, California. In 2017, Gonzalez passed away in San Antonio.
In 2024 Gonzalez’s daughters donated a collection of artwork, writings, photographs, magazines, newspapers, and photographic slides to the Trinity University Special Collections and Archives.