César A. Martínez has long been recognized as one of the most important figures of the Chicano art movement in Texas and the United States. Deeply rooted in his native South Texas and its Mexican American culture, Martínez's work also reflects a broad knowledge of the history of art in both Europe and the Americas.

This book, which serves as the catalog for a retrospective at San Antonio's McNay Art Museum, surveys twenty-five years of the artist's work, from his first widely exhibited works of the mid-1970s through the present. All of the artist's principal thematic groups are included: his distinctive and brilliantly colorful barrio portraits, his highly textural South Texas landscapes, and his varied mestizo series. Media represented are paintings and constructions, watercolors, drawings, monotypes, woodcuts, and lithographs. The catalog includes an essay by Dr. Carey Rote and an interview with the artist by Dr. Jacinto Quirarte, plus a chronology, an exhibitions history, and a bibliography.