Manuel Ángeles Ortiz lived through the brief but intense Granada renaissance that occurred during the first two decades of the 20^th century. He was friends with the painters Ramón and José Carazo, the sculptor Juan Cristóbal, and Federico García Lorca, who he met in childhood. A few years later he established a friendship with Ismael González de la Serna, another young aspiring painter.

Once he overcame his family’s resistance to his decision to become a painter, he attended classes taught by José Larrocha. During a modeling session he met Paquita, an eight-year-old gypsy girl who would usually pose alongside her mother, “La Bernarda,” popularly known as La perla del Albaicín [The Pearl of the Albaicín].

After furthering his studies in painting at Cecilio Pla’s studio in Madrid in 1912, he married Paquita in late 1919. The following year the married couple and their newborn daughter moved to Paris. Vista de París [View of Paris], a charcoal drawing with Expressionist influences, is from that joyous time when the artist made his initial contact with the capital of art. Ángeles Ortiz would soon abandon that style, adopting an early cubist style in the manner of Vázquez Díaz, whom he met during those years.