(b Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, March 1, 1925). Spanish sculptor. As a child he often visited the shipyards where his father worked, and later he himself worked there as a fitter. He made his first modelled and carved sculptures as a self-taught artist in 1940. From 1948 to 1952 he trained at the Escuela de Bellas Artes in Madrid, at the same time improving his grasp of techniques by experimenting in an iron foundry. He spent two brief periods in London, first in 1953 and again in 1956; on the second occasion he looked closely at Egyptian and Sumerian sculpture in the British Museum. During this period he also absorbed the influence of the work of Julio González (e.g. Composition in Iron, 1050×1110×390 mm, Madrid, Mus. A. Contemp.) and of Piero della Francesca, of Michelangelo’s David and above all of African art and the native art of the Canary Islands. In his series of sculptures entitled Black Queens...