Julio de Diego
Julio de Diego (1900–1979) was a Spanish-born American artist and jewelry maker. He is best known for The Portentous City, a tall painting of Manhattan’s skyscrapers.
He was born in Madrid and left home at 15 after his father destroyed his drawings. Early in his career he worked on opera scenery and appeared in a Diaghilev Ballets Russes production. He served in the Spanish cavalry and fought in the Rif War, where he was wounded. After the war he moved to Paris and absorbed Cubism, Abstraction, and Surrealism. In 1924 he immigrated to the United States. A famous anecdote says he threw all his money off the Woolworth Building to start fresh.
In America he designed scenery in Tampa for a Broadway show and did fashion illustrations. He moved to Chicago in 1926, began focusing on painting, and had his first show at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1929. He designed the doors of St. Gregory’s Church in 1926. He briefly married Rosalind Mallery and had a daughter, Kiriki. A solo show followed in 1935, and he later moved to Mexico to study artifacts and work on sets for ballets.
In 1946 he exhibited Modern Handmade Jewelry at the Museum of Modern Art. He married Gypsy Rose Lee in 1948; they toured with the Royal American Shows, she performing while he painted murals. They divorced in 1955, and he settled in California. He supported artists during World War II and later taught at the University of Denver and the Artist Equity Workshop. He eventually settled in Sarasota, Florida, where he died on August 22, 1979. He also did illustration work, including Have You Seen Birds and A Stranger in the Spanish Village (1964).
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 02:59 (CET).