Jose Vives-Atsara

Jose Vives-Atsara was born April 13, 1919 in Vilafranca del Penedes near Barcelona, Spain. A native Spaniard, he developed a love of painting at an early age, and by age 11 had committed himself to becoming an artist. He studied at Colegio de San Ramon and had his first one-person show at age 14.

The Spanish Civil interrupted his idyllic young life as he was forced to serve in the Communist Army, and then was imprisoned, suffering many hardships.

Soon after the war, he relocated to San Antonio, Texas, where he had a long career teaching art for Incarnate Word College and becoming known for his Texas landscape paintings done in a vibrant palette knife technique.