Born in Portbou, Catalonia, she was the sister of the poet and art critic Rafael Santos Torroella.

[1] In this city she integrated into intellectual circles and made friends such as Federico García Lorca and Juan Ramón Jiménez.

In 1932, she participated in the Iberian Artists Collective in Copenhagen and Paris, and the next year was invited to the exhibit at the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh (USA).

In 1936, at the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, Santos Torroella and her husband fled Spain for France.

[1] Her early work ranges from expressionism to surrealism, though it later moved into Post-Impressionism, primordially landscape and interiors.