Colombian painter Leonel Góngora studied at the National School of Fine Arts in Bogota and then with Max Beckman at Washington University, St. Louis. Based in Mexico City in the early 1960s, Góngora was a founding member of Nueva Presencia and Salon Independiente. He moved to the U.S. in 1963 and was a Professor of Painting at the University of Massachusetts for thirty years. In 1986 he won first prize in the National Salon of Artists of Colombia at the National Museum of Bogota.