Óscar Domínguez

About

Óscar Domínguez was a Spanish Surrealist painter born in San Cristóbal de La Laguna, Tenerife, Canary Islands. Orphaned of his mother at a young age, he was raised by his grandmother in Tacoronte, where a childhood illness left him with a physical deformity affecting his skeletal structure. He began painting early and moved to Paris in 1927 at age 21, initially working in his father's export business while immersing himself in the avant-garde scene, frequenting art schools and galleries influenced by artists like Max Ernst, Yves Tanguy, Salvador Dalí, and Pablo Picasso. In the 1930s, Domínguez became a key figure in Surrealism, meeting André Breton and Paul Éluard, participating in exhibitions in Copenhagen, London, and Tenerife, and inventing the decalcomania technique in 1936. He studied printmaking at Atelier 17 and held his first solo exhibition in 1933. During World War II, he worked underground in Marseille, befriended Picasso, and designed sets for Jean-Paul Sartre's play 'The Flies.' Post-war, his work exhibited internationally in New York, Milan, and Prague, though he distanced from Breton's group by 1947. Struggling with health issues and mental instability, he had an affair with Marie-Laure de Noailles and died by suicide in 1957.

Surrealism with decalcomania technique and later geometric influences from Picasso