(b Béjar, Salamanca, 21 May 1884; d Meudon, nr Paris, 26 Nov 1949). Spanish sculptor, active in France. He was the son and brother of stonemasons and mastered the technique of carving in stone while a boy. He studied from 1902 to 1905 at the Escuela de Artes y Oficios in Béjar and later for a short time in Madrid but was otherwise self-taught. In 1913 he settled in Paris and never returned to Spain, although he always remained on the margin of various artistic circles and avant-garde movements. His first years were marked by great economic hardship; he was obliged to make his sculptures from paving stones or from the remains of tombstones. In 1920, however, he exhibited in the Salon d’Automne, after which his success increased, culminating in a one-man exhibition in Paris at the Pavillon de Marsan (1927), when he was awarded the Légion d’honneur. He was shy and retiring by nature and spent most of his life working tirelessly in his villa in Meudon, where he had installed a private zoo whose animals served as models. The sculptures he created from this readily accessible subject-matter were remarkable for their simplified forms and volumes, showing clearly the influence of Sumerian and Egyptian sculpture. His preferred materials were the hardest stones, such as porphyry, schist, diorite and granite, and he paid particular attention to the final polishing of his sculptures. Hernández died almost blinded by stone splinters, his lungs damaged by silicosis caused by his carving.

• Hernández, Mateo
  • Cantú, Federico
  • France, §IV, 6(i): Sculpture, c 1900–c 1945
  • Spain, §IV, 5: Sculpture, after c 1900