Julio De Diego was born on May 9, 1900 in Madrid, Spain. When he was a boy of fifteen in Madrid, he already knew he wanted to be an artist, but his father, a wholesale and retail merchant, objected. Father insisted that Julio and Julio's brother should aim for business success. When his father destroyed all his drawings, Julio left the house for good, and true to the romantic pattern of art biographies, became a successful painter. His brother inherited the business, gambled it away and killed himself.

Before De Diego came to the United States at the age of twenty-four, he had been an apprentice in a scene-painting studio for Madrid theatres and was an extra in the Ballet Russe's performance of "Petrouchka" with the great Nijinsky. F...