José García y Más was born in 1945 in Santa Cruz de la Palma on the Canary Islands, Spain, and studied at the Escuela de Bellas Artes in Santa Cruz de Tenerife. When he was 18 years old, he worked in the engine room of a Norwegian petroleum tanker, which took him around the African continent. In 1970 he then exchanged the unloved Franco regime for the young German democracy and finally moved to Berlin, where he took a degree in Engineering.

Since 1980, García y Más has pursued an independent career as an artist, undertaking various study trips to Sweden, England, Italy, and Spain. He is a member of the Künstlerbund Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (BBK), Professional Artists’ Association. He and his wife now live and work on the Island of Usedom in the Baltic Sea.

Although global policy plays a very important part in his world view, García y Más is not a political painter in any narrow sense. His pictures deal with contemporary issues, often in a satirical mode, and need to be ‘read’ with insight. His painting “The Lion Tamers” (1985) – a striking example of his political expression - now hangs in the permanent exhibition “A Walk Through Two Thousand Years of German History” in the Deutsches Historisches Museum (German Historical Museum) in Berlin.

His figurative, strongly linear compositions have their roots in Pittura Metafisica and Surrealism, thus forging a link with Giorgio de Chirico and René Magritte. Yet, the focus of his critical-realistic artwork is rather more on the problematic social and political issues of the day; the point is made by means of alienation, irony and wit, often in a macabre and even sardonic manner.

From his earthy, powerful yet cool ‘valeurs’ and his detailed compositions abounding in figures, García y Más turns in his oil paintings to an increasingly intense and radiant use of colour with a poster-like intensity. This determines the scenario of his canvases, which is now restricted to a few essential figures.