Edward Martinez Valentine Collection

Edward (Ed or Edw) Martinez took Jim McCormick's print-making class in the Art Department at the University of Nevada, Reno, while obtaining a bachelor of arts degree in journalism. He then obtained a bachelor of science degree in education, with a minor in art, in 1965. That same year, he married Kay Barnum and they set up residence in Virginia City, eventually acquiring a complex of houses and studios.

While working on his Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Iowa's School of Art, he began teaching printmaking for UNR's Art Department. He soon became Chair of the Art Department, a position he held twice during his tenure at the University. During a Spring 1973 printmaking class, Martinez sketched a Valentine design and printed copies of it for his students. The next year, several students approached him with a request for another "hairy Valentine." This launched his annual series of limited edition, hand-drawn silk-screened Valentines. Valentines created in the years he was on sabbatical in England have British design elements. By 1998, he had an international distribution list of over 600 women, including about 100 at the University, who would receive the anonymous Valentines.

In 1997, the University's Black Rock Press printed 500 copies of Straight From the Heart: The Valentines of Edw Martinez, with an essay by William L. Fox, reproductions of the Valentines in chronological order, and commentary by Martinez about some of the Valentines. That publication, along with an article about Martinez in the January/February 1998 issue of Silver & Blue revealed his identity as the Cupid of Northern Nevada.