José Díaz was born in Campo de Criptana in 1930. Shortly later, the family moved to Carrión de Calatrava. José Díaz started working as a child.

He howes his initial inclinations towards painting to his father who made him a little note-book with advice and vignettes that tell how a little boy called "Josillo" becomes a success as a painter. This is a document of incalculable value and premonition.

In 1952 after his military service, he arrives in Madrid and connects with the artistic circles of the moment and acquires a self-taught education. To earn his living, he works as a painter and decorator. In 1956 he participates in his first individual exhiibition in Valladolid.

In 1957 he goes to Paris. He participates in the editions of the "Biennale International De Paris" in 1961, 1963 and 1965 and is finalist in the first and last editions mentioned. His work forms part of the "20 Painters of the École De Paris" and this exhibition travels across the United States between 1963 and 1964.

Later José Díaz participates during several years in the "Salon De La Jeune Peinture". In 1964 he has an individual exhibition in the Dirección General De Bellas Artes in Madrid. From that date until 1977 when he definitely returns to Spain, he passes long periods of time in his home country with exhibitions every two years in Madrid and other Spanish cities. His studio is in Madrid since 1966. Activities continue in Paris with individual and collective exhibitions and participates until 1974 in the "Salon Des Realités Nouvelles".

This painter’s attitude of constant search and frequent long stays in Spain lead him to think about Spanish classical painters and, thus, figuration. The result is a series of extremely personal interpretations of Velázquez themes that lasts until the end of the seventies. This pictorial search of "Spanishness" leads him into the mythical terminology of bullfighting, which had always been a vocation since childhood. In the eighties, landscaping -the constant theme of his work- is portrayed in a series of urban landscapes of big European cities. From 1977 he presents over 25 individual exhibitions, of which we point out those in Venezuela and Moscow. This last exhibitiion is of renown and took place in 1987.

As of 1990 José Díaz returns to abstract painting. The work of this period which is shown on this occasion permits appreciation of how all his activity is channelled through a common course. All his plastic experiences are contained one into the other.

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