Candida Alvarez (born 1955) is an American painter. She is a tenured professor of Painting and Drawing at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where she has taught since 1998. Candida Alvarez was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1955. She earned a BFA from Fordham University, New York in 1977 and studied at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 1981. She earned her MFA from Yale University in 1997. Other well-known works by Alvarez include Recollections: Works on Paper by Candida Alvarez & Vincent D. Smith presented at the Brooklyn Museum in 1979.