Angel Botello Puerto Rico, Haiti, Spain (1913-1986) El Gato Feo, Cast #1 bronze sculpture inscribed signature. Biography from Art Cellar Exchange: Angel Botello was born in Galica, Spain in 1913. As a young boy he and his family moved to Bordeaux, France, where he spent the majority of youth and studied painting at the School of Fine Arts. When he returned to Spain as a young man, Botello continued his studies in art until the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, at which time he joined the army to work as a cartographer. Before long, the Botello family decided to leave Europe and moved to the Dominican Republic. The Dominican art community warmly received Botello, treating him as one of their own. Throughout the next several years, Angel Botello traveled and lived throughout the Caribbean. In 1944 Botello was invited to show his paintings in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. It was in Haiti that he met his wife, Chritiane. The Botello couple lived in Haiti until the 1950s, at which time they moved to San Juan, Puerto Rico. It was in San Juan that the couple opened their first art gallery in the Caribe Hilton Hotel. Angel Botello's art was very much influenced by island culture. Despite the hardships and political trauma suffered by this country, Haiti is a highly spiritual country that provides a seemingly inexhaustible supply of creativity and imagination to many artists who have brought this spirit to life. Angel Botello said that the light and bright colors of the tropics opened a new world for him and stimulated his creativity. It was this bright spirit of the islands that captured the artist until his death in 1986. Botello spent the last decades of his life in Puerto Rico, always producing. He left behind a legacy of oil painting, linocuts, lithographs, silk screens and sculptures. -Gretchen Van Camp Latin American Art Art Cellar Exchange 9" H x 22 1/4" W x 8" D