20th-21st Century Spanish

Born in a struggling lower middle-class family, Sánchez was forced to move to Madrid with his family to look for work just before the civil war broke out. Although he studied law, his friends Berrocal and Pirla who were at the time preparing to enrol at the School of Architecture encouraged him to attend sculpture classes given by Ángel Ferrant at the School of Arts and Crafts. Thanks to the support of his teacher, he obtained a scholarship to study in Italy, and this was to be the first in a series of grants that would allow him to acquaint himself with what was going on in the arts outside Spain.

Around 1955 he settled in Madrid, where he shared a studio with Arcadio Blasco in what is now the Museo de América, a space where many other artists gradually ended up. In the early seventies, after a period of constant trips abroad in the company of other artists (Farreras, Gabino, Labra, Molezun…), he was encouraged by his friend Farreras to prepare a solo exhibition at Galería Rayuela, which was to prove to be the first in an endless number of shows in Spain and worldwide.

In 1975 he was appointed Professor of Decorative Drawing at the School of Fine Arts in Madrid.