Edward Arcenio Chávez was born in the northern town of Ocaté, New Mexico but moved with his family to Colorado at a young age. Chávez studied painting at the Colorado Springs Fine Art Center and worked primarily as a post office muralist (in Glenwood Springs, CO; Geneva, TX; Center, TX; and Nebraska, TX) for the Treasury Relief Art Project (TRAP) during the New Deal. By becoming a War Art Correspondent for the U.S. Engineering Office of the War Department, Chávez was able to continue painting murals for the government during the war years as well.

In contrast with the majority of Hispana and Hispano artists exhibited here, Edward Arcenio Chávez attained a prestigious level of artistic success in Colorado and in New York despite his ethnic background. Chávez's New Deal paintings were exhibited at the New York World's Fair, the National Academy of Design, the Cleveland Institute, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Los Angeles Museum of Art. Chávez also worked as a fine arts professor at Syracuse University, the Albany Institute of Art and other universities and colleges in the New York area.