Jose Maria Mijares (1921 - 2003). José María Mijares was a Cuban contemporary visual artist. He began drawing in his adolescent years and entered the San Alejandro Academy of Fine Arts on a scholarship at the age of 16. His greatest influences were the artists of the "Havana School": Carlos Enríquez, René Portocarrero, Cundo Bermúdez, as well as his professors, most notable being modernist painter Fidelio Ponce. He was also a part of the influential group, Los Diez Pintores Concretos, or as they are usually referred to, Los Diez. Although the group had a relatively short life, 1959–1961, and exhibited together only a few times, they remain an important part of Cuba's art history especially in the pre-Castro years and leading up to the revolution. He left Cuba in 1968, resigning his teaching position at the academy when Fidel Castro came into power. Based in Miami, he continued to be a prolific painter and until his death in 2004, at the age of 82. Mijares was born in Havana, Cuba in 1921. He began studying art in 1936 at the San Alejandro Academy of Fine Arts, where his professors included Romañach, Menocal, Valderrama, Ramón Loy, and Caravia. He resided in Miami from 1968 until his death in 2004. Florida International University awarded him with an honorary doctorate in Fine Arts in 2001. He was also awarded the Cintas Fellowship, as well as the National Paintings Prize from the IV National Paintings, Engravings and Sculptures Salon. Mijares; work has been exhibited at several major shows in Havana, Paris, Caracas, Port-au-Prince, São Paulo, Tokyo, Washington D.C., and Miami, among other cities. Mijares is primarily a colorist, pure color constituting the substance of the forms of his creation. Drawing as a rule provides firm support, bold outlines giving definition and meaning to the whole. His thematic material is biological in character, based on living organisms: the life latent with no static form imparts a poetic mystery to his compositions. As a colorist, Mijares continues a tradition long identified with his country. He gives new meaning to the language of the past, however, fashioning it into expressions that transcend boundaries of both time and place.