Enrique Martínez Celaya is an artist, author, and former scientist. His work is held in over sixty public collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Moderna Museet in Stockholm. His notable projects and exhibitions include the State Hermitage Museum in Russia, The Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C., and the Berlin Philharmonic in Germany. He has also staged dual exhibitions alongside historical figures who influenced his practice, such as Diego Velázquez, Albert Pinkham Ryder, and Käthe Kollwitz. His publications include nine books on art, philosophy, and poetry, including Enrique Martínez Celaya: Collected Writings and Interviews, published by the University of Nebraska Press, which provides a comprehensive look at his ideas and evolution.

Martínez Celaya is the first Provost Professor of Humanities and Arts in the history of the University of Southern California, a role that underscores his broad intellectual and creative interests. He has also served as the Roth Family Distinguished Visiting Scholar and Montgomery Fellow at Dartmouth College, as Presidential Professor at the University of Nebraska, and as a tenured professor at Pomona College. He has been invited to speak at Stanford University, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Aspen Institute, among others. In 1998, he founded Whale & Star, an initiative that integrates artistic mentorship, cultural engagement, and publications in critical theory, art practice, and poetry that are internationally recognized.

Born in Cuba and raised in Spain and Puerto Rico, Martínez Celaya's early interests in both art and science shaped his multifaceted career. He started his training as a painter’s apprentice at the age of 12 and later studied literature and physics at Cornell University before earning an MS and completing his PhD coursework in quantum electronics at the University of California, Berkeley. He published scientific papers and earned four patents before fully committing to his artistic practice, attending the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture and receiving his MFA from the University of California, Santa Barbara.