A Fund of

 The Gaspar Enríquez Cultural Center was founded in 2022 to support the coming together of artists, students, and community members through activities in artmaking, environmental stewardship, and preservation of history. Located in San Elizario, Texas, the birthplace of El Paso County in far West Texas on the Texas-Mexico border, the Gaspar Enríquez Cultural Center is housed in a 150-year old adobe building restored and provided by the artist to support the Center and programming named in his honor.

The GECC is currently looking for a qualified candidate to serve as the founding Director and help lead the Center, board, volunteers, and artistic and educational programming over the next three years. You can find the job description for the GECC Director position here: GECC Job Director

Non-Cash

Tangible personal property. Examples may be real estate, oil, gas, or mineral interests.

Planned Gifts

Bequests, appreciated securities, life insurance, retirement plans, and charitable remainder trusts, and more.

 

About Gaspar Enríquez

Gaspar Enríquez is an American artist known for creating portraits of people of Chicago heritage. Born in the El Segundo Barrio neighborhood of El Paso, Texas, and now living and working in San Elizario, Texas, Gaspar earned a Bachelor of Arts in arts education from the University of Texas at El Paso and a Master of Arts in metals from New Mexico State University.  He inspired generations of art students at El Paso’s Bowie High School, where he taught for three-three years, until his retirement in 2002.

Gaspar’s dramatic portraits, all which reveal the power and dignity of his subjects, range from works on paper of writer Rudolfo Anaya and artists Luis Jiménez and John Valadez to 24-foot-high illustrations of Rudolfo Anaya’s Elegy on the Death of César Chávez.  Gaspar’s work is held in the collections of the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., Smithsonian, Tucson Museum of Art, El Paso Museum of Art, Lyndon Baines Johnson Library, and Albuquerque Museum of Art, among private collectors. His work was also part of the Art/Resistance and Affirmation, curated by the Wight Art Gallery at UCLA, which toured the United States. 

Gaspar received the Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Texas at El Paso in 2015 and Father Rahm Segundo Barrio Person of the Year Award in 2016.