Biography

Juvenal Sanso is a Spanish-born painter best known for his surreal landscapes. His graphic, textured works are painted in a bright palette culled from memories of his idyllic childhood in the Philippines, full of lush plant life and tropical skies. Born in 1929 in Reus, Spain, his family moved to Manila, Philippines in 1934 and opened a wrought-iron business. He realized his talent lay not in iron work but in painting and went on to study at the University of the Philippines School of Fine Arts under Fernando Amorsolo, Dominador Castañeda, and Ireneo Miranda. Sanso had his first solo exhibition in Paris in 1957, where he spent most of his adult life. In his lifetime, retrospectives of his work have been mounted at the Makati Commercial Center in Manila and the Cultural Center of the Philippines. His works are in the collections of the Musée d’Art Moderne in Paris, The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the National Museum of the Philippines in Manila, and the Museo de Arte Contemporaneo in Madrid, among others. Sanso lives and works in Manila, Philippines.