At the age of 24 he traveled to Europe where he studied the works of the masters, particularly Rembrandt, Titian and Tintoretto, and absorbed the varied influences of cubism, surrealism, informalism, and abstraction.
His presence was fundamental in the second wave of Spanish artists who arrived in Paris in the 1920s, in which he included Pablo Picasso, Ginés Parra, Pedro Flores, Antoni Clavé; although in his own country he was not really recognized until well into the 1970s when aspects of Art that did not fit in with the dominant informalism and social realism were finally valued.