Enrique Martínez Celaya is an artist, author, and former scientist whose work spans painting, sculpture, installation, fiction, philosophy, and poetry. He started his training as a painter’s apprentice at the age of 12. At 16, he built a laser that earned national recognition, and throughout his teens, he published poems, essays, and short stories. These early interests led him to study applied physics, literature, and art at Cornell University, where he was one of the few undergraduate students working at the Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source. He went on to earn an MS and completed his PhD coursework in quantum electronics at the University of California, Berkeley with support from a Regents Fellowship and Brookhaven National Laboratory. Before fully transitioning to art, Martínez Celaya received patents and authored several scientific papers in laser physics and superconductivity. He later attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture on an honorary scholarship before earning his M.F.A. from the University of California, Santa Barbara, with the department’s highest distinction. At UCSB, he was awarded a Regents Fellowship and served as a Junior Fellow at the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center. Immediately after graduating, he became a professor at Pomona College and, two years later, received the Young Talent Award from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Martínez Celaya’s work is held in over 60 public collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. He has realized international projects and selectively undertaken two-person exhibitions with historical artists who have influenced his practice, among them Albert Pinkham Ryder, Käthe Kollwitz, and Diego Velázquez. His notable projects and exhibitions include the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia; The Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C.; the Berliner Philharmonie in Berlin, Germany; and the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Havana, Cuba.

He is the author of nine books on art, philosophy, and poetry, including two volumes of Enrique Martínez Celaya: Collected Writings and Interviews, published by the University of Nebraska Press, which offer a comprehensive survey of his evolving ideas. He recently completed his first novel, The Year of the Moth, and co-authored, Tending the Fire: Creativity, Purpose, and the Unfolding Self, with the Jungian psychoanalyst James Hollis, both to be published soon. His work has also been the subject of 14 monographic publications including two recent books published by Hatje Cantz, Berlin, Martínez Celaya, SEA SKY LAND: towards a map of everything, and Enrique Martínez Celaya and Käthe Kollwitz: Von den ersten und den letzten Dingen.

Martínez Celaya’s career is distinguished by groundbreaking firsts that reflect the depth and scope of his work. He is the first Visual Arts Fellow at the Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens, where his sculpture became the institution’s first contemporary acquisition in its 100-year history. His critically acclaimed installation at the Hispanic Society Museum & Library marked its first contemporary exhibition in 112 years. As the first Fellow of the Tor House Foundation, he gained unprecedented access to work on-site at Robinson Jeffers’ historic home. He created the first public work honoring Operation Peter Pan, one of history’s largest exoduses of unaccompanied child refugees. His monumental sculpture The Tower of Snow, first exhibited at the State Hermitage Museum, now stands in a park he designed near Miami’s Freedom Tower.

Martínez Celaya is the first Provost Professor of Humanities and Arts in the history of the University of Southern California, where he has dual appointments at Dornsife College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences and at Roski School of Art and Design. He teaches courses in literature, philosophy, and art, reflecting his commitment to education and the breadth of his intellectual and creative interests. In 2025 he received the highest honor the university faculty bestows for distinguished intellectual and artistic achievement, the Associates Award for Artistic Expression. He has also served as the Roth Family Distinguished Visiting Scholar and Montgomery Fellow at Dartmouth College, the second Presidential Professor in the history of the University of Nebraska. In 2021 he received a Doctor honoris causa from Otis College of Art and Design and delivered the commencement address.

He has been invited to speak at institutions worldwide, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the American Academy in Berlin, Stanford University, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Aspen Institute, the Royal Drawing School in London, and the Aspen Center for Physics. In 1998, he founded Whale & Star, a globally recognized initiative integrating artistic mentorship, cultural engagement, and publishing books in critical theory, art, and poetry. The initiative also included The Lecture Project, a forum where leading writers and scholars examine the ethical dimensions of art. His collaborations extend across disciplines, bringing together artists, writers, scientists, and musicians, including a twenty-year working relationship with the Canadian rock band Cowboy Junkies.