Antonio Saura (1930-1998) was a Spanish painter, printmaker, and draughtsman whose politically charged, expressionist images made him one of the most powerful voices of postwar European art. Born in Huesca, Spain, Saura was largely self-taught as an artist and developed his practice outside the formal academic system. He initially became interested in Surrealism at the outset of his career, and his early work drew heavily on the movement's fascination with dreamlike imagery and psychological states. After meeting with André Breton in Paris during the mid-1950s, and partly as a result of the political unrest in Spain under the Franco dictatorship, Saura began to move toward a more directly expressionist style that led him toward alignment with the members of the CoBrA group.

Saura's mature art gradually became an expression of his political convictions and functioned as a sustained protest against the Franco regime. His characteristic imagery of distorted heads, imaginary portraits, crucifixion figures, and grotesquely stylized figures brought together the psychological intensity of Surrealism with the raw expressive force of Northern European Expressionism, producing pictures of unusual moral weight. He also began to exhibit his work alongside other members of the Situationist group, an avant-garde circle of artists and intellectuals influenced by Dada, Surrealism, and Lettrism who came to prominence in June of 1968 and were originally most concerned with the suppression of established art and its accepted forms of expression. Artists including Pierre Alechinsky, Karel Appel, Corneille, and Asger Jorn also exhibited their works alongside this group, placing Saura within a distinguished international avant-garde community.

Saura was one of the founders of the El Paso group, the important Spanish artistic collective that promoted Art Informel in Spain during the late 1950s. This group, which included fellow painters such as Manolo Millares and Rafael Canogar, established postwar Spanish abstract painting as an internationally consequential movement and helped bring Spanish art out from under the political isolation of the Franco years. Saura's role as a founder placed him at the center of the transformation of Spanish contemporary art during a critical period.

Saura received major international recognition throughout his career. He was awarded the Guggenheim Prize in 1960 and the Carnegie Prize in 1964, and his paintings are held in the leading museums worldwide, where they remain among the most emotionally powerful contributions to postwar European art.