20^th Century French

Born in Paris, in 1915 Viñes moved with his family to Madrid, where he spent the next four years. After that he returned to the French capital, where he came to the attention of some of the most important artists of that time, like Pablo Picasso, who encouraged him to take up painting.

He began training at the Académie d'Art Sacré, and continued his studies with André Lothe and Gino Severini, both followers of . His work was included in an exhibition for the first time in 1923, at the Salon d'Automne in Paris. There he got in touch with members of the group of Spanish painters, widely known as the . At that time he made forays into the world of stage design, creating sets both in Paris and Amsterdam, for instance for Master Peter's Puppet Show by Manuel de Falla.

The outbreak of World War II brought many hardships and the artist did not manage to achieve the recognition he had initially foreseen. That well-deserved recognition eventually arrived in 1965, with a retrospective of his work at the Museo de Arte Moderno in Madrid. This then led to a growing number of exhibitions not only in Spanish galleries (Galería Theo in Madrid and Valencia, Sala Dalmau in Barcelona, Galería Ruz in Santander) but also abroad (France, Germany, Denmark, America, Czechoslovakia, Great Britain, Japan). From that moment onwards, his works entered in important collections, like the Centre Georges Pompidou or art museums in Tel Aviv, Buenos Aires or Prague, to name a few.

In 1988, his career was distinguished with the Fine Arts Medal. Throughout his life Viñes engaged with various movements and trends in painting from to Surrealism, and Chromaticism, though it was this last-named technique that he would definitively embrace.