Emmanuel Catarino Montoya, a descendent of Apache and Mexican heritages, was born in Corpus Christi, Texas on April 16, 1952. Montoya resides in the San Francisco Bay Area where he attended public schools. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1985 and a Master of Fine Arts in printmaking in 1991 from San Francisco State University.

According to Montoya, the Chicano Movement of the late 1960s and 1970s, the master printmakers and muralists of 20th century Mexico and Latin America, and the Federal Art Project Works Progress Administration in North American during the 1930s and 40s, influenced his style. When he was a young artist living in San Francisco n the 1960s, Bill Graham's rock concert posters, with their splashing, colorful imagery and flowing text that represented the art and music of the time, had a major impact on the art he was producing.

Emmanuel Montoya taught printmaking, mural painting, and drawing throughout California for thirty years. He completed numerous public art commissions for the Mission Branch Library, San Francisco; the international terminal at the San Francisco International Airport; the College of Fine Arts at San Francisco State University; Whole Foods Market in Cupertino, California; and the Alameda County Arts Commission. The Graphic Works of Emmanuel C. Montoya was presented at the National Museum of Mexican Art in Spring 1988. In 2014, he received the Kala Art Institute’s Master Artist Award in recognition of his contributions to the fields of art and art education.

Montoya is represented in the collections of the La Salle University Art Museum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Library of Congress and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.; McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, Texas; and the Mexic-Arte Museum, Austin, Texas.