20th-21st Century Spanish

Though born in Ceuta, at the age of three his family moved to Segovia. After enrolling in medicine, he abandoned his studies in 1968 to take up painting and in 1972 he moved to Paris, where he entered into contact with the members of the movement, which he then introduced to Spain. In 1975 he took part in the exhibition "10 Abstractos", and shortly afterwards his work was chosen for the Spanish pavilion at the Venice Biennale. León returned to Paris in 1979 with a scholarship from the Fundación Juan March and in 1985 he moved to New York with the aid of a grant awarded by the Comité Conjunto Hispano-norteamericano. After being named a member of the Board of Management of Círculo de Bellas Artes de Madrid in 1987, he was appointed to the post of adjunct professor at the School of Fine Arts of Cuenca, where he held the post of dean for two years. In 1991 he gave up teaching and in 1995 he returned to New York where he lived and worked until 2002, when he decided to return to Spain and settle in Segovia, where he has a studio near Torrecaballeros.

Besides his painterly production, this abstract artist has also worked with installation, sculpture and photography. His practice engages with a landscape of the imagination predicated not on what it depicts but on the texture, colour and surface he obtains during the painterly process.

In 2016 Carlos León was awarded the Arte y Mecenazgo Prize for Artists, in recognition of his status as one of the most seminal painters of his time, always exploring abstraction and the limits of supports, techniques and painting.

His work is included in the collections of major museums and institutions in Spain and USA.