[1] Born in San Cristóbal de La Laguna on the island of Tenerife, on the Canary Islands Spain, Domínguez spent his youth with his grandmother in Tacoronte and devoted himself to painting at a young age after suffering a serious illness which affected his growth and caused a progressive deformation of his facial bone frame and limbs.

He went to Paris at 21 where he first worked for his father in the central market of Les Halles, and spent his nights diving in cabarets.

He rapidly attracted avant-garde painters, notably Yves Tanguy and Pablo Picasso, whose influences were visible in his first works.

In 1933 Domínguez met André Breton, a theoretician of Surrealism, and Paul Éluard, known as the poet of this movement, and took part a year later in the Surrealist exhibition held in Copenhagen and those of London and Tenerife in 1936.

Domínguez's style influenced many artists including Max Ernst, Hans Bellmer, Remedios Varo and Dutch poet and translator Gertrude Pape.