Brief Biography-María Blanchard was born in Santander, sadly with deformities, in 1881. However, her journalist father encouraged her to draw, and she settled into painting. In 1903 she entered the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in Madrid. Blanchard later won a grant to study at the Académie Vitti in Paris, where Juan Gris, the cubist painter, strongly influenced her and became a close friend. She went home during the war and returned to Paris in 1916, where she remained for life. Blanchard enjoyed success in the 1920s, exhibiting in France, Belgium, and New York. However, she later faced financial difficulties, and Juan Gris died in 1927, which affected her badly, and her health slowly failed. She died in Paris in 1932.