ALEX GONZALES 1927 ~ 2020 Carmel Art Association Artist Member, distinguished artist, and professor emeritus of Monterey Peninsula College passed away on Sunday, October 4, 2020, at age 93 in his Carmel home with his beloved wife Gail by his side. Alex was born in Superior, Arizona in 1927. Shortly thereafter his family moved to Southern California and then to San Francisco in quick succession. After beginning his academic studies at San Jose Junior College in 1946, Alex was drafted into the Army. He served with the 61st Field Artillery battalion in Japan, receiving both a World War II Victory Medal and the Army of Occupation Medal. Alex’s passion for art revealed itself at an early age. He was awarded prizes in poster competitions and was President of his high school art club. Taking advantage of the GI Bill, he advanced his dream of attending art school, graduating in 1951 from what is today known as the San Francisco Art Institute. There he studied under Clifford Still, Elmer Bischoff and Richard Diebenkorn, maturing his own style through the mid-century period of abstract expressionism in the Bay Area. Alex then moved across the Bay to continue studies at the California College of Arts and Crafts (CCAC) in Oakland where he met his first wife, Virginia Oller, and mingled with contemporaries including Manuel Neri and Nathan Olivera. After another 18 months with the Army Occupation forces in Germany from 1953-1954, Alex returned to CCAC and graduated with a Bachelor of Art Education degree and a teaching credential in 1955. The next year he earned a Masters of Art degree from San Francisco State University. Teaching positions followed at a junior high in Oakland, a high school in Willits, and Monterey High. In 1960 Alex joined the faculty of the Monterey Peninsula College Art Department where he taught painting, figure drawing, and design over a 30-year career. He was known for playing classical music in his art classes, introducing many of his students to this style of music for the first time. Over the years Alex continued to be a very prolific artist, painting in his Carmel home studio where he created abstract landscapes and figures in acrylic, oil and collage. He juried into the Carmel Art Association and exhibited there for over fifty years. He mounted several large exhibitions at the Monterey Museum of Art and at the opening of the Monterey Conference Center. His work was also shown across California including the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento, Santa Barbara, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Oakland, Los Gatos, San Jose and in the Salinas Court buildings. Nationally he exhibited in New York and at the Tacoma Art Museum in Washington state where he was recognized as an Outstanding West Coast Artist. Alex’s expertise was sought frequently as an art exhibition juror, and he donated many paintings over the years to fund-raising efforts across the Monterey Peninsula. His work is held in the permanent collections of the Monterey Museum of Art, Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula, and Monterey Conference Center, as well as corporate and private collections worldwide. While Alex chaired the MPC Art Department, he met Gail Murray at a reception for the San Francisco art critic Alfred Frankenstein whom she was hosting at her Carmel home. Gail was serving on the Board of the Pacific Grove Art Center at the time. They were married in 1974 and drove to Guatemala for their honeymoon, as Gail was interested in Latin American textiles. This was the first of numerous foreign adventures to satisfy their mutual passion for travel. Over the years they visited 35 countries in Western Europe, the Americas, Australia, and even Russia during the Cold War. Alex also enjoyed gardening and music, and he maintained close friendships with his CCAC “art group” cohorts. His genteel personality, acceptance of diverse peoples, love of Nature, and grace as a human being are all cherished by his friends and family. Carmel Art Association honored him in November 2022 with a special retrospective exhibition, Alex’s Garden of Art.