MADRID, SPAIN.- The Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía presents Juan Soriano – Travelling Birds, on view through February 19, 2007. The Mexican artist Juan Soriano (Guadalaja, 1920 - México, D.F., 2006) had his first exhibition in the town of his birth at age 14. Painters María Izquierdo and José Chávez Morado, as well as photographer Lola Álvarez Bravo, visited that exhibition and recognized the birth of a new artist. They suggested that he move to Mexico City, which he does a year later and where he starts a friendship with Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco and the literary group The Contemporaries, as well as with writer Octavio Paz.

A few years later, when Spanish exiles arrive to Mexico, he meets María Zambrano, Diego de Mesa, Ramón Gaya, Luis Cernuda, José Bergamín, León Felipe, Max Aub, Pedro Garfias, Francisco Giner de los Ríos, Juan Larrea, Manuel Altolaguirre, José Gaos y Juan Gil-Albert, among others.