Jose Maria Mijares, painter, designer and printmaker, was born in Havana on June 23, 1921 and died in Miami in 2004. He studied in 1938 at the National School of Fine Arts San Alejandro in Havana, Cuba. His early artistic influences came from artists such as Ponce and Romanach.

During the years 1958-1961, he was a member of the group “Diez Pintores Concretos de La Habana”. From 1959 to 1960, he was a professor at the National School of Fine Arts San Alejandro, in Cuba. At the age of 47, he went into exile in Miami, Florida.

Between 1968 and 1973, he was a member of the Gala Group in Miami and in 1970 he was appointed art director of the Alacrán Azul Magazine in Miami. He illustrated many times the Orígenes review edited by José Lezama Lima.

He began his career with a modernist figurative style, then a type of surrealism in the 70s and finally a decorative expressionism. He was one of the pioneers of geometric abstraction in Latin America. Many years later, he will forcefully return to the figurative world that he will not abandon until his death.