Rafael Alberti was born in 1902. During Madrid's literary renaissance of the late 1920s and early 1930s, Alberti wrote his most well-known book of poems,
Sobre los angeles (
Concerning the Angels). After the Spanish Civil War, he wrote
To Painting while in exile in Argentina. Alberti spent almost forty years in exile before returning to Spain. To date, he has written twenty-four volumes of poetry, a handful of plays, and a five-volume autobiography.
Carolyn Tipton, a poet and translator, is the recipient of various grants and awards, including a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities. This translation of To Painting won the 1998 National Translation Award, and was a finalist for the PEN Center USA West 1998 Translation Award.