Bonifacio (San Sebastián, 1933) is one of the most important and original Spanish painters of the last half-century. Although Bonifacio was fond of drawing since childhood, the beginning of his artistic career dates back to 1955, when he won first prize in a painting competition with a Cubist-influenced composition and entered the School of Arts and Crafts. After various jobs, he began working as an illustrator in an advertising studio.

His friendship with the painter Julio García Sanz allowed him to refine his painting skills. In 1958, he held his first solo exhibition at the Ateneo de Guipúzcoa. After a brief stint in Paris, where he met Mompó, Cuixart, and Saura, he settled in Bilbao. There, he became involved with the Grises Gallery, a space frequented by artists of the El Paso movement, and where he presented several solo exhibitions in the second half of the 1960s. After working as a graphic designer and jazz musician in Bilbao—having previously held a variety of jobs, including bullfighter, fishmonger, and cook—from 1968 onward, he dedicated himself fully to painting and printmaking. Encouraged by Fernando Zobel, he moved to Cuenca, where he forged a close professional relationship with Antonio Lorenzo, who introduced him to printmaking techniques, as well as with Antonio Saura, Manuel Millares, and the publisher Antonio Pérez. His time in Cuenca proved fundamental to his artistic development.

His style shifted towards a bold, figurative drawing style, which he applied to both his oil paintings and his prints of biomorphic creatures, directly inspired by the extensive insect collection he kept in his studio. In 1970, he signed a contract with the Juana Mordó Gallery, with which he remained until the early 1990s. During the 1970s, his painting became more sophisticated. Without abandoning the graphic value of drawing, he focused more intently on the chromatic treatment of his compositions. After spending extended periods in Mexico, in 1989, the year he moved to Madrid, he was commissioned to design twenty-six stained-glass windows for the Cuenca Cathedral.

With over thirty original editions, the quality and originality of his work earned him the National Engraving Prize, awarded by the National Chalcography in 1993. Furthermore, in 2005 he received the Arts Prize of the Community of Madrid. The volume Bonifacio. On the battlefields It presents a comprehensive retrospective of Bonifacio's work: canvases, drawings, series of engravings and lithographs created between 1968 and 2005. The book includes a DVD with the documentary The inner scar (CBA, 2007), the first in a series of self-produced documentaries based on interviews with prestigious artists and intellectuals linked to the CBA. In a commitment to the free dissemination of culture, this documentary is released under a Creative Commons license (http://es.creativecommons.org), which allows distribution, copying and display by third parties for non-commercial purposes.