The painter José González Collado was born in Ferrol in 1928. At age 12 he entered the School of Arts and Crafts of Ferrol, the oldest school of Arts and Crafts in Galicia. He studied at the School of Apprentices Bazán, entering the department of design and Electricity of that Company. In 1942 knows the famous painter Felipe Bello Piñero, elected that year Number’s Academic of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of La Coruña. With 17 years old, he received his first prize in the Exhibition of Arts, Education and Break in La Coruña (1943); at age 18 he received the first prize in the Fifth Exhibition of Art of SEU in La Coruña, and he was granted a scholarship Study of support that will allow him to study in Madrid.
In 1944 held his first solo exhibition in Casino Ferrolano, when counting only 18 years old. In 1945 moved to Madrid to painting studies.
The eagerness to learn was huge and daily he visited the Prado Museum: he felt fascinated by Velázquez and Goya, this one considered by him the best painter in the world, precursor of impressionism and modern painting. Shortly he returned to Ferrol to military service. After the military instruction, through the writer Camilo José Cela – who’s met in the literary assemblies in Madrid - obtains posting to Madrid to continue his art studies. Finally he had the opportunity to accomplish the entrance examination to the School of Fine Arts: he draw, in natural size, a figure of a Greek sculpture of two meters in height. He was approved as second between 90 students. At Fine Arts School he’d acquire knowledge of form and color, techniques and styles.
Then he visit the magnificent painter ferrolano Alvarez de Sotomayor, who becomes his protector and teacher, counseling him and in some cases providing economic support.
In 1947 he married with Josefina Pena, with whom he is happy after almost 40 years of marriage. From this marriage were born three daughters who follow the artistic path of her parents: Fina,working in publicity, Lili, in the restoration of artworks and Merch, the restoration of documents. He traveled around North Africa, Morocco and Algeria, where he found new themes and colors to paint. In 1957 traveled to Paris where he satiates of museums and painters, in the world center of the latest artistic tendencies from the nineteenth century.
He returned to Madrid in 1959 and remained there until 1997, when he came back to Ferrol, where establishes the new Studio 46, where he continues working with the same force of a young artist. At the final of 2006, the Ayuntamiento de Ferrol organized an anthological exhibition where presented over 160 artworks and it was a critical and public success.
On that occasion it was granted to him the city’s gold medal and developed a square in front of his studio that toke his name: Plaza de José González Collado.