José Caballero (Huelva, 1915) entered the San Fernando School of Fine Arts in 1932. Through the teacher Daniel Vázquez Díaz, he came into contact with the most prominent artists and intellectuals of that time, and also thanks to him he collaborated on the staging of Stravinsky's The Soldier's Tale for its premiere at the Residencia de Estudiantes (Student Residence).

Federico García Lorca brought him into the La Barraca University Theatre in 1934. This marked the beginning of a fruitful relationship that resulted in numerous collaborations. During this period, he also came into contact with Pablo Neruda, Rafael Alberti, Miguel Hernández, and the brothers Luis and Alfonso Buñuel.

The presence of María Fernanda Thomás de Carranza in his life spurred him to a true dedication to painting, and in 1950 he inaugurated his first solo exhibition at the Clan Gallery in Madrid. His work began to move away from figuration, and he experimented with different materials and supports. He is the only Spanish painter who, in the manner of the New York abstract group, evolved directly from Surrealism to abstraction.

He was invited to participate in international exhibitions such as the Pittsburgh, Venice, and São Paulo Biennials, and in 1951, he won the Young Painters Prize at the 1st Hispano-American Biennial at the Museum of Modern Art in Madrid. He also received the British Critics' Prize at the International Exhibition in London and an award at the 2nd Hispano-American Art Biennial at the Museum of Modern Art in Havana.

In the 1960s, he held his first solo exhibitions abroad and joined the artists of the Juana Mordó Gallery. From this point on, geometry became the central theme of his paintings. He reconnected with Pablo Neruda in Barcelona and with Rafael Alberti in Rome, both of whom wrote poems for the catalog of his first solo exhibition at the Juana Mordó Gallery.

He was awarded the National Prize for Visual Arts in 1984 and, in 1989, the Medalla de Oro to the Fine Arts. Since his disappearance in 1991, more than forty exhibitions have been organized around his work in galleries in Europe and America.