Alberto García-Álvarez is a multidisciplinary artist based in Tāmaki Makaurau. Born in Spain, he received a classical art education at the Escola Superior de Belles Arts de Sant Jordi, University of Barcelona. In 1947, while still a student, he cofounded the group Flamma, with which he produced frescoes for churches in Catalonia and on Mallorca. In 1961, he moved to California with his family, and had a solo show at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. He taught at several colleges, including the University of California, Berkeley. In 1973, he relocated to Aotearoa to take up a position at the University of Auckland’s Elam School of Fine Arts.

In the 1970s and 1980s, García-Álvarez showed with Petar-James Galleries, alongside other notable non-objective painters, such as Ian Scott and Gordon Walters. He has travelled and exhibited widely, his work being included in major group shows, such as Directions in New Zealand Printmaking, Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, Ngāmotu New Plymouth, 1980, and Content/Context: A Survey of Recent New Zealand Art, National Art Gallery (Shed 11), Te Whanganui-a-Tara, 1986. He retired from teaching in 1995. Today, he is one of Aotearoa’s most highly respected living artists, a consequence of both his influential teaching and his diverse artistic achievements, which span painting, sculpture, and public art.