Born on 1923, in Ciudad Bolívar, Venezuela. Studied at the Escuela de artes plásticas in Caracas from 1942 to 1947 and then served as director of the Escuela de bellas artes in Maracaibo, Venezuela, until 1950, at which time he moved to Paris. There he associated with the leaders of the new realities group as well as with the likes of Jean Tinguely, and Victor Vasarely and Ellsworth Kelly, as well as artists connected to Galerie Denise René. In 1955 Soto participated in Le mouvement at Galerie Denise René, the exhibition that effectively launched Kinetic art. By 1957 Soto had moved to-ward a more gestural abs-traction, but by 1961 returned to a defined geometric idiom. Major exhibitions of Soto’s work took place at Signals Gallery, London (1965); Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (1971); Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (1974); and Musée national d’art moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (1979). In 1969 UNESCO commissioned Soto to create two murals for their buildings in Paris. In 1973 the Museo de arte moderno Jesús Soto, which houses works by Soto along with works by international avant-garde artists he admired, including Jean Arp, Kazimir Malevich, and Man Ray, opened in his birth city of Ciudad Bolívar. Soto was the receipient of numerous awards and became the most renown kinetic artist of his times. He died in Paris in 2001.