Jose Vives-Atsara was born April 13, 1919 in Vilafranca del Penedes near Barcelona, Spain. A native Spaniard, he developed a love of painting at an early age, and by age 11 had committed himself to becoming an artist. He studied at Colegio de San Ramon and had his first one-person show at age 14.

The Spanish Civil interrupted his idyllic young life as he was forced to serve in the Communist Army, and then was imprisoned, suffering many hardships.

Soon after the war he married Emilia Hill Domenech, and in 1947 set out to move with his wife and child aboard a tramp steamer to the United States. Unfortunately, immigration quotas did not allow them to move directly to the United States, and it was eight years before th...