Venezuelan painter and *Kinetic artist, resident in Paris since 1960. He was born in Caracas, where he studied at the School of Fine Arts, 1940–45, and from 1946 to 1951 he was director of the Venezuelan branch of the McCann Erickson Advertising Agency. In 1953–5 he was an illustrator for the newspaper El Nacional and taught typography, and in 1955–6 he lived in Spain; he made two visits to Paris during his stay in Europe and it was at this time that he became interested in optical phenomena. He returned to Venezuela in 1957 and became assistant director of the School of Fine Arts in Caracas and professor of typographical design at the Central University of Venuezuela. In 1960 he settled in Paris, where he became friendly with other Latin American artists, notably his fellow Kineticist *Soto, and continued the experiments with arrangements of primary colours he had started during his earlier visits.