Óscar Domínguez (San Cristóbal de la Laguna, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, 1906 – Paris, 1957) arrived in Paris in 1927 to organize the export side of his father’s banana business. Soon after, he frequented the Surrealist circles of André Breton. In 1929 he made his first paintings influenced by Salvador Dalí, Yves Tanguy, and Max Ernst. He held his first solo exhibition in 1933 at the Círculo de Bellas Artes de Tenerife, hosted by the Gaceta de Arte [Art Gazette]. In 1934 he joined Breton’s circle, incorporating references to the landscapes of the Canary Islands into his Surrealist style.

His decalcomanias, whose design stemmed from a procedure borne out of chance, produced a suggestive result that was open to interpretation. This technique became popular in Surrealist circles and influenced abstract painting during the 1950s. Likewise, he produced works aided by stencils in an effort to limit interpretation: the “automatic decalcomanias with premeditated interpretation”.

Between 1938 and 1939, during his “cosmic period”, he introduced crystallized forms and reticular structures into his work. Along with Ernesto Sábato, he elaborated the Theory of the Petrification of Time. In the early 1940s, the metaphysical influence of Giorgio de Chirico and Pablo Picasso became apparent in his work, which also combined Cubism and Realism.