Juvenal Sanso was born in Reus, Catalonia, Spain in 1929, but moved to Manila five years later, where his family established El Arte Espanol, a wrought-iron business. The young Sanso spent his boyhood in Paco. He attended the Philippines Scholl of Fine Arts where he studied with Fernando Amorsolo, Dominador Castaneda and Ireneo Miranda.

The years 1950 and 1951 were turning points for the talented young artist. During the first year, his work “Incubus” won first prize in the watercolor category of the Art Association of the Philippines competition. He repeated the feat the following year with “Sorcerer” which won first prize in the AAP oil category. During the same year, he also won third place in the Shell Art Competition and left for further studies in Europe at the Academia di Belle Arti in Rome after establishing residence in Paris. He also enrolled at L' Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux-Arts.

Sanso held his first one-man show in Paris then came home in 1957 for his first local one-man show at the Philippine Art Gallery. He has since continued traveling extensively and holding solo exhibitions in Italy, the United States, England and Mexico and coming back to Manila regularly for occasional shows. In 1964, another significant year, his works "Leuers " was adjudged Print of the Year by the Cleveland Museum of Art, giving Sanso the rank of previous winners like Henri Matisse and Salvador Dali. In the same year he held a major all-media one-man show at the Cleveland Museum of Art, as well as one-man shows at the prestigious Philadelphia Print Club and New York's Weyhe Gallery.

In 1966, Sanso had a 20-year retrospective show at the Makati Commercial Center. In 1974, a 25-year retrospective was held at the Cultural Center of the Philippines. In 1976, in commemoration of the Manila World Bank and the International Monetary Fund summit meetings, Sanso held a one-man retrospective of some 1,000 works, released a portfolio of 10 lithographs on Philippine subjects, and was the subject of a book written by Alejandro Roces. In 1989, he made a milestone by doing six simultaneous exhibits in Manila at the Metropolitan Museum, the Lopez Museum, the Ayala Museum, the Center Cultural de Espaha, the Alliance Francaise and the Finale Art File.

In 2009, he marked his 80th birthday with a series of shows in some of the premier venues in the county such as Galerie Stephanie, Mandarin Oriental Suites in Gateway Mall in Cubao, and at the SM Art Center. Sanso currently resides in both Manila and Paris.
 

Biography taken from the Juvenal Sanso website: http://www.juvenalsanso.com/