Robert Gonzales (1939–1981) was a San Francisco painter associated with the Lyrical Abstraction movement. Born in Phoenix, Arizona, on September 28, 1939, he moved with his family to Los Angeles in 1942. By his senior year of high school in 1957, Gonzales excelled in both athletics and art. Upon graduation, he was offered two scholarships—one for tennis and another through the prestigious Golden Key Award, granted annually to one senior high school student per region. Choosing art over athletics, he used the award to enroll at Chouinard Art Institute (later the California Institute of the Arts) in 1958.


At Chouinard, Gonzales was introduced to abstraction and became especially influenced by the color field paintings of Mark Rothk...