Julio Girona was born in the eastern city of Manzanillo in Cuba. Originally, he attended the Academia San Alejandro in Havana, and then continued his studies at the Academie Ranson, Paris. And finally, in the 1950’s at the Art Students League in New York. Prior to 1950, the human form was always present in his work but, after enrolling in the Art Student’s League in New York, he undertook his first abstracts in oils. During the 1950s he regularly exhibited in New York as well as in prestigious European galleries, either in one-man shows or collective exhibitions with abstract expressionist painters from the US. A listing of his exhibitions is well documented in Who Was Who in American Art. Respecting his connection to Cuba, Girona worked as a professor of drawing and etching at the Higher Institute of Art, and exhibited his work in galleries and museums. In 1984, he took part in the First Havana International Biennial with three abstract oils: "Phone conversations 1, 2 and 3", and his quasi-retrospective "Open Window" at the Acacia gallery in 1988, which earned him the National Visual Arts Prize. Girona’s works are held in the following institutions: Palacio De Bellas Artes, Havana, Museo de Buenos Aires, Chicago Art Club, Newark Art Museum, Colegio Medico, Havana. His lithograph, “Cargador” is prominently illustrated in the Philadelphia Art Museum exhibition catalog, “Mexico and Modern Printmaking” by John Ittman (at Pl. 257).